


Deuteropathy

by ShastaFirecracker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Agender Castiel (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Case Fic, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Genderswap, Hunter Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, National Park, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Rule 63, Season/Series 07, Sexism, Slice of Life, Witches, sexist microaggressions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:56:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: Witchcraft goes awry and Sam, Dean, and Cas all end up slid to the opposite end of the gender spectrum. Stuck in these new bodies for the foreseeable future, they have to carry on with their lives... except the adjustment is a lot harder for some than others.





	Deuteropathy

**Author's Note:**

> AU point of canon divergence: This is very roughly placed where the beginning of season 7 is in canon, except with the alteration that Cas did manage to put Leviathan back in Purgatory along with all the souls at the end of season 6. Afterwards, heaven cut him off from home because of his crimes, and he's still an angel but his powers are heavily reduced. The bunker isn't a thing yet, but Bobby is alive and well, and Cas travels and hunts with the boys.
> 
> Note on the premise: I don't even read genderswap fic much so I'm not sure what possessed me to write this idea, but mainly I wanted to do a realistic version of Rule 63. Essentially this meant that I wanted not everyone to be okay with the change, i.e. at least one person experiencing dysphoria as a result of their body suddenly being a different, undesired shape. That being said! I would like to note! That I am cis! And I do not remotely mean for this fic to speak for the experience of people who have dysphoria, or trans or fluid folks who _don't_ have dysphoria, or literally anyone else who I ought not be talking over. This is NOT a fic about transness, genderfluidity, or personal identity at all, really... it's just a fluff fic about Dean being upset about peeing, and Sam having boobs that make his back ache, and your usual array of goofy Supernatural plot elements.
> 
> See end notes for specifics regarding the rating, or ignore if you want to read on.

-

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!”

“AHHGH!”

“OhshitI'msorryohshitohshit-”

“UNDO IT!”

“I'mtryingI'mtryingI'm-”

“FUCKING UNDO IT RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP-”

“Dean, _shut up!_” Sam bellows, lurching forward to slap a hand over his brother's mouth. Dean struggles under his grip, eyes flashing a combination of outrage and pain and panic, but Sam holds tight. He's wracked with the same shooting, razor-like pains – bones crunching, flesh warping – but Dean is not helping the situation one iota by screaming obscenities.

Wendy the hedge witch scrambles around her worktable, grabbing ingredients, swiping out chalk sigils with shaking hands, clearly panicked. She is, to be blunt, awful at witchcraft. Sam and Dean had been drawn to the little Tennessee suburb by the usual sort of oddities that pinged their radar – livestock born with too many heads or limbs, sudden blights, people very publicly and conspicuously acting like chickens, every woman in her thirties inside a mile radius suddenly having labor pains for the same two minutes even if they're not pregnant. They'd driven into town expecting a trickster, or a fairy infestation, or maybe a harvest god gone nuts. They hadn't anticipated a friendly, glasses-wearing, mousy-haired teenage girl who was just trying to help people out with a little white magic.

Sam's pretty sure the township would love for Wendy to stop trying to help them out.

When they'd come at her with weapons, she'd started crying. Alarmed, they'd stopped, and at Sam's insistence they'd sat her down to have a talk instead. Sam had tried to explain her mistakes, calm her down and let her know they weren't going to hurt her. Keywords: he'd _tried._ Dean, jumpy and witch-hating, had gone a little too bad cop on her for Sam's tastes, and Sam had cut the interview short by dragging Dean outside to yell at him for yelling at teenage girls.

Way too late, they'd sniffed out the rotten egg in the picture: a low-level demon, barely out of its ghosty diapers, posing as Wendy's friend and filling her head with all the oh-so-helpful ideas she'd been having lately. And also, apparently, telling her tales of evil hunters who would likely show up wanting to cut her head off and use it for a bowling ball, or something.

Long story short, Wendy – too good-natured and timid to be corrupted by some pissant infant demon who barely knew a host from a hole in the ground – had cast another spell. On Sam and Dean. To erase their memories of having met her, so they'd leave her alone.

But Wendy was a _terrible_ witch.

_“I'm sorry!”_ she wails, tears streaking down her cheeks as she digs a pile of plastic baggies of herbs and bones out of a drawer and tries to read her own neat labels with hands that are shaking too hard to hold anything still. “Please, I didn't mean this, I never meant to hurt you!”

Dean wrests out from under Sam's hand. “I DON'T GIVE A F-” Dean's face looks like a Ken doll head held under a blowtorch flame and Sam feels like puking just looking at him.

“What's _happening?”_ Sam interrupts at top volume, trying desperately to ignore the way he feels like a big wad of bubble wrap being popped by a giant invisible hand.

“I don't know!” Wendy squeaks. “I used – I used henbane – that probably wasn't right – maybe if I, um, if I steep the oleander in a more alkaline solution, or use -”

“WAVE YOUR FUCKING WAND AND AUUUUGHHGHHH!” Dean doubles over, sinking to his knees, dragging at the mess of his face.

Wendy grabs up some bags, rips them open and dumps them in a copper bowl in a panic. “Okay, okay!” she says. She fumbles for a match, miraculously manages to strike it, and holds the flame over the bowl. “Um,” she wavers out. “C-corpus in-in-t-t-”

That's exactly how far she gets before the shed door crashes open, a wild-eyed, rifle-wielding Castiel appears in the doorway, and a purple spray of fluffy feathers appears on the front of Wendy's shirt. She stutters to a halt, looks with huge eyes down at the dart in her stomach, and – with a tiny exhale that sounds almost relieved – she collapses.

“CAS, WHAT THE F-”

Sam kicks Dean in the side and Dean grunts to a halt.

“Cas, what the fuck!” Sam says instead.

Castiel slumps in the doorway and wheezes, and Sam realizes that he's starting to exhibit melty-face syndrome as well. Wendy must have seen him with the Winchesters around town and assumed he was also a target.

“Were you _seriously,_” Castiel shouts, once he's gotten his breath back, “about to let that witch perform _another_ spell on you with a transfiguration spell still in progress?”

“She was trying to undo it -” Sam starts.

_“No more! Magic! From her!”_ Cas bellows, pointing his tranq gun threateningly at Sam.

“I'M DYING HERE,” Dean yells.

“No!” Cas groans in pain, dropping the rifle down to point at the floor. He curls against the doorframe, barely keeping a grip on the gun. “Won't – die,” he grits out, jaw clenched tight. “Harmless. Temporary.”

“HARMLESS?” Dean wails.

“Temporary?” Sam echoes.

Cas nods, a small, sharp movement. Then he slides to his knees and crumples sideways onto the floor.

“Temporary what?” Sam moans, finally succumbing to the pain and tumbling to the floor himself. His body is changing – _transfiguration,_ Cas said, metamorphosis, and abruptly Sam thinks of reading The Metamorphosis for a lit class at Stanford, and he laughs a high, crazed laugh, because what if he's turning into a giant bug? _What a fucking life we live,_ Sam thinks. _I hate everything._

Then he passes out.

-

Sam claws his way back to consciousness and peels his eyes open to find himself flat on his back on the floor of the backyard toolshed where Wendy does her spells. His field of vision is mostly occupied by Wendy's peaceful, tranquilized face, lips gently parted, drool gathering under her cheek. He can't have been out for long.

Groaning, he pushes against the floor and works up to a sitting position. He's sore all over, but also brimming with energy, the kind of heady endorphin rush that comes after a hard workout. It doesn't feel too bad. He still isn't sure what Wendy's spell did. Maybe it just toned his abs up, ha.

There's something like sleep grit in his eyes even though he's only been out for a few minutes. He blinks to clear it away, then scrubs his eye. No, still fuzzy. He squints, then widens his eyes and rolls them around. Not helping. A more careful touch with a fingertip at his tear duct – no, no grit.

Everything's blurry. Everything's blurry and it's his eyes that are the problem.

His gut heavy with dread, he tries to say "Dammit, Wendy," but his throat is dry as the Sahara. He coughs, trying to clear it, and sits further up, turning to get his legs under himself to stand – and something heavy and fleshy slides against his chest.

Sam yells, leaping to his feet to get away from whatever creepy critter Wendy has summoned that is crawling on him, and another voice yells in shock, too, one he doesn't recognize. Across the room in the doorway, the crumpled pile of tan overcoat begins to shift and groan as Cas wakes up. The thing attacking Sam hits him in the chest as he flails upright, and it must have clawed or bitten its way into his skin to hang on, because he can't lose it. Knife! He staggers towards the altar to snatch up the ceremonial dagger, his mind only on cutting this monster off himself before it can kill him, and in the course of three steps, he walks right out of his shoe, trips over it, and collapses to one knee with a hoarse yell of "Shit!"

Except the voice that yells is the new one in the room, the one he didn't recognize, and he whips his head around, looking for a source, even though he knows fucking well that the source was his own throat.

"Shit," he says again, shakily, confirming it.

He pushes to his feet again and hastily grabs up the knife, but he doesn't do anything with it, because he's had enough time to process the feeling of weight against his chest and he is trying so, so hard not to think about what he is fairly certain has happened.

Clutching the knife like a security blanket, he squeezes his eyes shut for a second and then turns back to the doorway.

A woman sits up, looking groggy but not panicked. She's wearing Castiel's suit and overcoat, and next to her hand on the floor is the tranquilizer gun that Sam rigged. She has dry-looking lips, weary lines around her eyes, and short, dark, flyaway hair.

Her eyes land on Sam. "Ah," she says, not sounding surprised at all.

"Please no," Sam says, and his voice is hoarse because his throat is dry, but that doesn't mask the distinctive way it's changed.

"Transfiguration magic," says Castiel. He pushes to his feet. Her feet? Takes one step and staggers over the exact same problem Sam had – a loose shoe. He looks down at his feet, frowning, and steps carefully out of one shoe at a time, leaving the dress boots in the doorway while he pads towards Sam in black socks.

Their height difference is wider by several inches. Cas looks up at Sam, studying, and Sam takes in how unnervingly similar he looks to his regular self, even though he's shorter and slimmer all around. It's difficult to pinpoint what has changed in his face, beyond bone structure, which is unhelpfully ambiguous. Jaw less squared, Sam supposes, and face more rounded, and stubble gone.

His hand flies to his own face. It's not as utterly hairless as he expected, but the barely-there downiness on his cheeks is fine and soft. He touches his mouth, cheeks, eyes, but what is he expecting to feel, anyway? It feels like his face.

He toes out of his other shoe and leans down to pick it up, to compare how much smaller his feet have gotten, but when he leans forward, the fleshy monsters on his chest swing forward with his movement.

Sam shuts his eyes and holds his breath and counts to ten. He should probably never tell Dean that he thought breasts were Alien-style facehugger critters trying to kill him, or that he called them “fleshy monsters” in his head.

_Dean._ Sam straightens, wincing as the – the _breasts_ – flop back down. He walks towards Dean's form, splayed facedown on the floor, and toes at his side.

“Hey,” Sam says. “Up.”

Dean groans and mutters against the floorboards, and Sam can already tell from the pitch of his curses that he hasn't escaped the magic. Turning his face to the side to speak clearly, Dean rasps, “The fuck was that, a helium-sucking spell?” He pushes to his hands and knees, then stands, grimacing. “The fuck is -” And then his eyes land on Sam, and he's got his 1911 in hand before Sam can say jack.

“Who are -”

“Dean, stop -”

“- and where's -”

“- it's me -”

“- done with my br-”

“- spell did somethi -”

“- working with the witch, you demo -”

And then Castiel's hand is on Dean's arm and he drops the gun abruptly, hissing with pain, as though the grip had burned him. He swings an automatic left hook at Cas, who catches his fist easily in his cupped palm, and Dean takes half a breath to actually _look,_ and then all the air rushes out of him in a gut punch of understanding.

Dean looks back at Sam. Then at Cas. Then down at himself.

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

Sam winces at the bellow, which is not too changed from Dean's normal roof-raising belligerence, higher pitch or not. Sam raises his hands in a calming gesture and looks helplessly at Cas, begging for explanation.

“Transfiguration,” Cas says, yet again. “She used henbane, didn't she?”

“Uh,” says Sam.

Cas shakes his head, exasperated. “Well, like I said, it's harmless, and it should be temporary.”

“SHOULD BE?” Dean hollers.

“It will be.” Cas moves his hand from Dean's arm to his shoulder. “I promise.”

“FUCKING-” Dean shrugs away from Cas' touch and runs his hand through his hair. It's the same length, Sam realizes. He – his new body – is the least changed of the three of them, as far as Sam can tell. He's a little shorter than Sam remembers, and his shoulders are less broad, but his legs bow the same way, and his facial structure is almost indistinguishable. Sam's gaze drops unwillingly to Dean's chest, and he balks at himself for even having the instinct to check out his brother's rack, but, well... there isn't much of one.

Dean takes a deep breath and rounds on Cas, slightly more collected. “Change us back,” he says.

Cas shakes his head. Before Dean can release a string of profanity at him, Cas says, “This spell may be harmless, but the witch's magic as a whole is volatile and unstable. It's much safer to let this wear off in due course than entangle her energies with anything else, especially not anything as potent as grace.”

“So her magic is vinegar, and grace is bleach,” Sam says. “Safe-ish on their own but don't mix 'em.”

Cas makes a face at the comparison but says, “If... you must think of it that way, then yes.”

Sam sighs and scrubs his hand over his face. “Right. Right. Crap. So... what do we do?”

Cas shrugs. “Finish the hunt,” he says. “The demon is still here, and it would be prudent to have a more – mm – level-headed conversation with Wendy when she wakes up.”

“Yeah, that's... gonna be a few hours,” Sam mutters, staring down at Sabrina the Teenage Witch. “Her parents are gone for another three days, right?”

Dean waves his hands. “No, hey, more importantly, how long is this gonna be?” He getures violently at himself.

Cas gives him a soft look, tilting his head slightly and sighing with fond exasperation. “I don't know,” he says. “Certainly no more than a month.”

_“A MONTH?”_

-

Wendy's little altar to “white” (read: chaos) magic is hidden in the toolshed to keep it mum from her parents, but said parents are gone on vacation. They're a sweet couple, disgustingly in love, and they've taken a second honeymoon and allowed sixteen-year-old Wendy her first-ever stint of being home alone. So instead of throwing a kegger like a normal teen, she busts out the grimoire and starts cleaning up the neighborhood, all while taking advice from a shoulder demon.

Sam picks Wendy up and is pleased to find that his physical abilities don't seem to have changed. This body, though altered, has had the same life experiences as Sam's normal one, cardio and all. As he hefts the girl in his arms, her glasses slip down her nose and threaten to fall off.

Struck by a terrible thought, he leans her against the altar long enough to free one hand, pull off her glasses and wrestle them onto his face.

Clarity.

“Motherf...” he mutters, shoving the glasses up the bridge of his nose and hefting Wendy's ragdoll body up again.

“Hey,” he calls to Dean, who's helping Cas toss the place for Wendy's grimoire or any clue as to where the demon's gone. Sam jerks his head towards the house. “Come open the door for me.”

Dean's mouth falls open, then curls into a look of glee. “What was that, four-eyes?”

“Just open the fucking door, Dean.”

So they leave Cas to finish the search. Dean almost pulls out his lockpicks, then makes a disgusted face at the door and pulls out a credit card instead. With embarrassingly little jimmying, the back door pops open.

The house belongs in a magazine for rustic chic. Sam deposits Wendy on the living room sofa and gently pulls the hypodermic dart out of her abdomen, blotting away the pinprick of blood with her shirt hem. “I think we're squatting for a little while,” Sam says, and then is caught unawares by a gurgle from his stomach. Discomfort he'd thought was aftereffects of the spell resolves itself into simple hunger. “Uh. Kitchen?” he suggests.

Dean's shoulders slump. “God, I'm _starving.”_

A silent, fervent five minutes is spent ransacking the fridge and cabinets. Finally, half a ham sandwich already inhaled, Dean takes a deep breath and rubs a hand over his face. “Okay,” he says. “This is happening.”

“Yeah,” says Sam around a mouthful of turkey.

“So what, are you my sister now?”

“No,” Sam says, muffled, and struggles to swallow. “Of course not.”

Dean gives him the scrunched 'you're full of shit' face.

Sam huffs a long-suffering sigh. “Gender and sex are different things, Dean, of course we're still men.”

Dean looks even more lost. “What?”

The back door opens and shuts, and Cas stalks into the kitchen, carrying his and Sam's shoes. He sets them down neatly next to the door, then pads over to the counter. “My pants keep falling down,” he says, matter-of-fact, then sees the sandwiches and lights up. “Oh, food,” he says, and takes Dean's second sandwich without asking.

“The hell, man?” Dean demands.

Mouth full of bread and ham, Cas says, “The transformation burned through our metabolisms like wildfire. Even I can feel how hungry my vessel is, and this is the simplest solution.” He crams in another bite.

“Like when Famine made your vessel hungry?” Sam asks, a little concerned about the rapidity with which the sandwich is vanishing.

Cas looks up with wide, hopeful eyes. “Can we get burgers?”

Dean makes a noise of disgust, but his stomach grumbles and he keeps eating anyway.

Sam clears his throat and unconsciously reaches up to brush crumbs off his shirt, and in so doing, he, uh – touches himself. And freezes. And yanks his hand away. Dean sees it, and smirks. “Yeah,” Sam says, slowly. “Speaking of... clothes.”

Dean seems okay. Overshirt hanging a little loose, pants a couple inches too long, but he still fits in what he's wearing. His boots don't even seem to be bothering him. Castiel, on the other hand, looks like he's poorly playing dress-up as a businessman. His sleeves are much too long, collars too wide, shirt sagging out around empty space all around his middle. It has almost a kid-in-dad's-clothes effect. And yeah, his pants are sliding even as Sam watches.

“Hey,” Sam says, gesturing, and Cas looks down and grunts with irritation, yanking the pants back up. “Tighten your belt,” Sam suggests.

While Cas figures out buckle mechanics, Sam takes stock of himself. Still tall, but his angle on the world is a little skewed – he would bet six foot even, maybe six one, instead of his usual six four. At least his pants aren't falling off, but his shirt is... not a good situation. At mid-chest, the tightness is too much to ignore. It's pulling the fabric into gaps between the buttons. He wishes like hell he'd put on a t-shirt this morning.

“Nice rack,” Dean says, because of course he does.

Sam finishes his sandwich while glaring at Dean, who gives him a cheery grin. Feeling slightly less ravenous, he stands up from the barstool he'd claimed. “Okay, I'm, uh. I'm gonna go assess the damage.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it because Dean looks like Christmas came early. “Samantha!” he cries in mock scandal. “A good, Christian girl like you!”

Sam flips Dean off in passing.

“No touching yourself, you gotta keep it all for Jesus!” Dean yells.

Sam stomps away down the hall, ignoring his brother.

It's easy enough to find a bathroom. It doesn't have a full-length mirror, but the one over the sink shows more than Sam really wanted to see, anyway. He slows to a halt, transfixed by the sight. His hair is the same – of course it is, Dean and Cas' are, but – well, it's different, long hair framing this particular face.

He's... pretty.

He stares for a minute, assessing. If he'd thought Dean without the Y chromosome was uncanny valley, it's nothing compared to looking at himself. He touches his face and can hardly reconcile the reality of his senses with the reflection aping him. The fuzz he'd felt earlier is still there, but it's so fine it's invisible. His lips are a little fuller, his nose a little less prominent, but his jaw is still oddly square, his eyebrows thick. He abruptly yanks his mouth open and leans close to the mirror, but yeah, he has all the same dental work, a couple of fillings and a small chip off one incisor that he'd gotten from clumsily banging a beer bottle against his teeth.

That's the detail that makes him go weak in the knees as it slams home that this is unambiguously real. He's never told anyone about that, especially not Dean, out of sheer embarrassment. No one creating an alternate body for him would know to add that detail. This is not a mind swap, a glamour, or any party trick.

Fingers shaking slightly, his hands go to his shirt.

He feels sick. This seems voyeuristic, but now that he is as positive as he can be that this body is 100% Sam and he isn't violating anyone (except himself), he needs to see. He closes his eyes, pops the last couple of buttons, shucks the shirt, and looks.

Anti-possession tattoo, check. That gives him some comfort. His shoulders and collarbone are as defined as he remembers. Still got that one mole near his left armpit. Curiously, he raises said arm, and finds a healthy crop of pit hair, same as always.

“Huh,” he says to himself, voice too high.

And, well. Dean wasn't wrong. He's got a nice rack.

“Huh,” he says again, and is promptly sick in the sink.

-

Spells don't come with a list of side effects, but if they did, they could give any prescription drug a run for their money. After a while of being curled up on the bathroom floor, the waves of cramps and muscle spasms pass, and Sam is able to stand up on shaky legs and pull his shirt back on. He's desperately hungry again, but somehow, under his skin, he feels more normal. Settled. He hopes that means the spell's done fucking around.

When he re-enters the kitchen, Cas is sitting at the barstool he'd vacated, head in his hands, looking wrecked. Dean's leaning over the sink, running water and splashing his face.

“You too?” Sam asks, marching over to the fridge. Unfortunately the sandwich makings are pretty much gone.

“That should be the last of it,” Cas says to the countertop, then groans.

“At least you didn't yarf,” Dean says, knocking back a glass of water with a grimace. “Waste of a perfectly good ham and swiss.”

“I can still suppress my vessel's biological functions to some degree,” Cas says dryly. “But it's proving more difficult in this form. Like I said, the spell and my grace don't interact well.”

“You gonna be okay?” Sam asks.

“Yes, as long as I leave the spell alone to run its course. I just didn't want to... yarf.”

"So that shouldn't happen again?" Sam asks, taking a seat across from Cas.

"Not until the spell begins to fail," Cas confirms. "There may be discomfort associated with the change back."

"Great," Dean mutters angrily over the sink.

"Less than there would be if I ripped it out of you now," Cas snaps.

"Stop it," Sam says wearily. He rubs his eyes. "A month, huh."

"No longer than a month, I said," Cas clarifies. "Transfiguration magic is usually broken down by an opposing natural transformation, the course of cosmic order eroding the arcane attempt to turn a thing against its nature. A sunrise can break the weakest spells - equinoxes and solstices can break stronger ones."

"Summer solstice just passed," Sam says.

Cas nods, looking glumly at the countertop. "I'm afraid this particular type of transfiguration is very common and is entangled much more fiercely with the molecular structure of the target. In our cases, it will take a physical act of ritual shedding and renewal to shed the spell and renew our bodies, as you might say."

"So get ritually shedding, whatever the hell that means," Dean says, still looking away from them. "What do I need, steel wool?"

Cas sighs and looks up at Sam, and suddenly it clicks in Sam's head.

He gives Cas a look begging it not to be true, but Cas nods. With a groan, Sam puts his head in his hands. "Dean," he says, "what kind of routine shedding does a body with a uterus do naturally that will definitely happen sometime within the next month?"

Dean is silent for a long moment.

"Motherf..."

-

Dean needs a chance to process (read: Sam needs a break from the yelling) so Sam shoves him out the door with a wad of bills and orders to bring back food, liquor, and shoes. In the blessed silence of his absence, Sam and Castiel go back out to the shed and bring in Wendy's books and the remnants of her most recent spellwork, clear off the coffee table in the living room, and hunker down to research while Wendy snores softly on the opposite couch.

Dean returns forty minutes later with burgers and flip-flops. Sam holds up the pink foam cut-out garbage excuses for shoes and glares at Dean. "Really?"

"Only thing in the gas station I figured would fit," Dean says, flopping into the unoccupied recliner and tearing the wrapper off a Whopper.

"Only color they had, too?" There are rhinestones glued to the straps.

Dean grins, mouth full, mustard on his cheek. "Oh, and this," he says, and digs in his shopping bag. He throws a wad of fabric at Sam, who shakes it out. It's a triple-extra-large t-shirt, bright orange, that says "Tennessee Volunteers" in a neon pink curlicue font inside a stylized football.

"Great," Sam says dully. "Thanks."

But he does retreat to the bathroom to change. The shirt, though humiliating, is at least large enough that he feels less self-conscious than he did in his gapping button-down.

When Sam returns to the living room, he watches Dean eat for a minute, then says, "You aren't nearly as jazzed about this as I figured you'd be."

Dean quirks an eyebrow.

"What happened to, uh, 'if I had to live forever I'd wanna come back in the body of a hot cheerleader,' or whatever it was you said that one time?"

Dean gulps down some soda to clear his mouth, then gestures at himself with the cup. "Does this look like hot cheerleader to you? My knee still hurts from last week, my hand's still healing from that slide bite, that dumb mole's still on my ear. I got all the same wrinkles and dings. If I gotta get the Polyjuice whammy I can't at least get a little cleanup, huh? A little detailing? Ten years younger, maybe? This is bullshit, all this is is me sans dick, and that's one of my favorite parts of me."

While Cas is absently eating a third burger – and he hadn't lost his sandwich earlier, either, so Sam can only assume he's not letting the food go to his vessel's stomach anymore and is just eating for the entertainment value – he says, "I admit I'm surprised as well, Dean. I thought you'd have leapt at the chance to... explore.” He looks up at Dean, eyes as big and blue as ever.

Dean stares at him and swallows. “Uh.”

Cas blinks slowly. “I wouldn't be averse to, uh. The opportunity afforded.”

Sam looks between them. “Oh, no, guys, gross, no,” he groans, burying his face in his hands.

They've been together for going on seven months, and it may be fated and cosmic and true love and whatever the fuck else, but what it is, mostly, is a bane on Sam's existence. Of course it's much better for all of their lives that Dean and Cas communicate better now, and remember (mostly) to use their “I feel” phrasing when they do fight. Having Cas around for hunts, even with his powers limited after being being exiled from heaven, has made them more effective by orders of magnitude. And although they still fight amongst themselves, and all of them think they know best, and every one of them is a little too willing to jump in front of a bullet for the others, they are as happy as Sam can remember them being in an embarrassingly long time.

He is thrilled that his brother has found love. He is not thrilled that his brother finds love at 3 a.m. in the motel room that adjoins Sam's, or the front bench of the Impala, or the alley behind the bar where they're celebrating their latest successful hunt. He is not thrilled that his brother finds love as frequently and enthusiastically as possible, with relatively little concern for where Sam is located in relation to said love.

And he is not real thrilled that he knows a fair amount of dirty talk in Enochian, now, because Castiel is possibly louder than Dean. Also, Sam tends to know exactly the moment when Cas has... found love... because nearby lightbulbs have an alarming tendency to explode.

But Dean shifts uncomfortably in his chair, leans forward, and says, “Not that I'm not down to clown, babe, but – I wanna know all I can about this, okay? I just think we should talk to Sabrina first.”

Cas no longer corrects Dean when he calls witches Sabrina. He just shrugs, nods, and finishes his last burger. “From what I can see of her spellwork,” he says, muffled, “there isn't much else to glean. It truly is harmless, Dean.”

Dean doesn't look like he's willing to believe that, but he thins his lips and settles back to wait.

-

Wendy wakes around sunset, stirring on the couch with a groan. Dean has slipped into a light doze on the recliner, and Cas has been staring at the wall for the last half hour, mouthing Enochian to himself. Sam goes over to the girl, his movement rousing Dean, and kneels by the sofa in front of her. He reaches out and takes her hands, holding them together lightly. This is partly to draw her attention, but mostly so he can restrain her quickly if she tries to whip out any quick spellwork.

Her head lolls over and her eyes lock onto him. Her mouth falls open for a moment, and then she looks past him at the other two people in the room, and then she... bursts into tears.

Sam starts. Behind him, he hears Dean snort. Sam hesitantly lets go of Wendy's hands and awkwardly pats her shoulder instead.

“I'm... sorryyyy,” she sobs. Her tears are soon accompanied by snot.

“Uh,” says Sam. He waves back at Dean. “Kleenex?”

Dean hunts down some tissues and shoves a wad towards the girl. She finally sits up, shaking and mopping her face, shiny with the sweat of misery and the occasional fresh tear track.

“Wendy,” Dean says seriously, standing, arms crossed. It isn't any less intimidating than usual, even without his five o-clock shadow and heavy brows. “You got some 'splainin' to do.”

Her face crinkles up again. “I used the w-wrong s-spell,” she hiccups through the end of her tears. “I had a couple half worked o-out already and I, _hic,_ grabbed the b-body one instead of the m-mind one...” She looks up at them all, wide doe eyes. “Are you gonna kill me?” she asks, voice cracking.

Sam sighs and pushes Dean to go sit down. He joins his brother on the opposite couch, leaving Wendy plenty of space so she doesn't feel threatened. “No,” he says. “We're going to kill the _demon_ that's been feeding you these ideas.”

Her eyes widen impossibly further.

Sam explains it all in a calm, even tone, stepping on Dean's foot every time he tries to add something. Wendy starts crying again, but she listens intently through the tears. Her hand goes to the spot on her stomach that must be sore from the dart, and she glances at Cas, who shot her, but she is clearly coming to the understanding that it could easily have been a bullet, and the fact that it was not is of paramount importance.

She agrees, quietly, to everything Sam tells her. She hangs her head in shame and takes the We're Not Mad, We're Just Disappointed speech with true humility and relative dignity. Finally, Sam is satisfied.

“Now,” Dean interjects, “you're gonna _fix this,_ and then you're gonna dump magic for good, okay?”

Cas looks sharply at Dean. Sam frowns, too.

Wendy opens her mouth, but Cas beats her to it. “No,” says Cas. “This will wear off. We are not allowing her to perform any more spells on us.”

“W-wait... it'll wear off?” Wendy says, sounding surprised.

Cas wheels his gaze over to her, clearly so stunned by her ineptitude that he has no words.

She raises her hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she squeaks.

“But couldn't you just – break it now?” Dean demands of Wendy.

She looks terrified. “Uh... I'm not sure, I didn't think I would be breaking it, I didn't think it – that it was temporary, it wasn't supposed to be temporary.”

“Why did you have this spell in the chamber at all, Wendy?” Sam asks.

She flushes. “Well, I – it was for Vicki! She's ten, she lives on the next block and her family goes to the same church as mine – I've been friends with her sister since middle school. And, you know, Vicki's parents still call her Victor, and they say she's wrong, but I know she's right when she says she's a girl because I can _see_ her. How she's... supposed to be, I can see it on her, like this double exposure. And she's so sad, and I thought I could just...”

Sam sighs and scrubs at his eyes. “Wendy...”

“The body transfiguration spell was easy to find!” Wendy says, as if this makes it better. “I didn't make it up myself or anything, I copied it straight from the lore. And I figured it would freak her parents out, so I had a memory spell ready to go, too, to change their memories to having a daughter.” She gives a shaky smile, as if asking for approval.

“Are you nuts?” Dean asks viciously.

Wendy's face collapses. Trying for heated but mostly sounding gutted, she starts, “There's nothing wrong with being tran-”

“Of course there isn't!” Dean bursts, shifting with agitation. “There's something _wrong_ with fucking around with a kid's _body_ and innocent peoples' _minds,_ you psycho! You know how tricky memory magic is? You probably would have made them forget they had kids at all, or deleted the last ten years of their lives completely. And you want to just slam a ten-year-old into a different body they didn't pick after they're already fucked up by the one they're in? How's a kid gonna deal with that, huh?”

“But it's... the body she's supposed to have...” Wendy wibbles, bottom lip quaking.

_“Buy her some fucking hormones, then!”_

Sam whacks Dean's shoulder to tell him to shut up, and uses his best calm, reasonable tone to say, “Wendy, did you ask Vicki about this?”

Her expression says she did not.

“If you care about Vicki and you want her to be happy, the best thing you can do is talk to her,” Sam says gently. “Do what you can to support her getting treatment. This – this is not a solution that works. Were you going to change the memories of everyone Vicki ever met? Her school records, her birth certificate? If Victor just vanishes one day, you think _someone_ isn't going to call the cops or CPS to see what happened to him?”

She's crying again.

“And, Wendy... that spell hurt,” Sam says, driving the final nail home. “It hurt like hell, and Cas says it's going to hurt like hell again when it wears off. Imagine if you'd done that to a _little kid.”_

Wendy breaks down again. Sam feels slightly bad about tormenting a teenage girl – _he's_ hurting a kid, and it doesn't feel good to him, either – but he reminds himself of all the harm she could cause if she doesn't get this drilled into her head right now.

Eventually they get Wendy to calm down and ultimately to agree to a reduced role as demon-bait – she'll call her possessed friend to come over and meet her tomorrow in the shed, giving Sam, Dean, and Cas plenty of time to trap the shit out of the building and get prepped for an exorcism. They spend the evening doing just this, Sam going so far as to show Wendy how to make a devil's trap herself and giving her an anti-possession amulet just in case.

About the thirtieth time he winces as he bends over to paint, Wendy says, "Um, you probably need a bra. You'll hurt your back."

"Oh," Sam says dryly, "really."

She's already said he can keep her glasses. She has a spare pair. "Um, I'd let you have my clothes, but," she says.

"I got it," he says shortly. "Kinda busy at the moment. I'll get one after the demon's dealt with."

"Do you... have you ever shopped for women's clothes before?" she asks, sounding gentle in a way that gets on Sam's last nerve.

"Yeah," he snaps, "for my night job as a drag queen. Don't you have wards to be working on?"

Cas has had to shed his coat and suit jacket and roll his sleeves up past the elbow, but they keep slipping down because they don't fit as tightly around his arms. He's had to roll up the cuffs of his pants, too. Sam finishes the last of the traps and realizes they're going to have more than a little shopping to do.

Dean is the first one of them who takes a bathroom break since the spell hit. A few minutes later, Sam heads back into the house to wash paint and goofer dust off his hands, and opens the bathroom door without knocking, not realizing Dean is in there.

Sam doesn't catch him in any compromising way – Dean is just staring at the bathroom mirror, knuckles white where he's gripping the edge of the counter. He looks whey-faced and spooked, and Sam immediately thinks the spell must have caused another wave of nausea.

"You okay?" Sam asks.

Dean jumps, finally noticing him. "Fine," he squeaks, "I'm fine, hey, pissing's a whole new experience, huh?" And he beelines out of the room, not meeting Sam's eyes.

A little while later Sam discovers that Dean is not wrong. Pissing is a whole new experience.

At long last, they leave Wendy to her own devices (with promises of epic retribution if she does anything hinky with her free time) and head back to the motel in the dead of night. Sam broaches the topic of shopping.

"It's fine, we'll gank the demon lickity-split and have you in a Victoria's Secret by lunchtime," Dean quips.

"I know you think you're jealous that I have bigger tits than you, but so far they're just a pain in the ass," Sam grouses. They sway and flop every which way, and they pull at his skin, and _god,_ the hellish swamp of sweat underneath them.

"Nah," says Dean, "I always knew you were more prone to girl parts, Sammy." But his voice, while trying to be light, is a little bit off.

"This really bothers you," Sam says at length.

Dean's brow furrows. "Don't like being screwed around."

Sam bites his cheek. "Yeah, but this _really_ bothers you."

Dean scowls. "Drop it, Sam."

And because of his tone, Sam does.

-

Dean is not okay with this, and how extremely not okay with it he is is starting to fuck with his head.

He loves women's bodies. He's loved plenty of women, you know, as people, but the deeper love he doles out to people as friends, family, and lovers is pretty limited. So sure, he loved Lisa for more than just her body. But he's fine with saying that most of the time, with most people, he just loves – or rather, enjoys and appreciates – their bodies, and leaves it at that.

So yeah, he has worshipped at the altar of tits and bush all his life. (Dick and ass also welcome in this personal church.) And he lives a weird life, so it's not like he's never considered that this kind of thing might happen to him. He had honestly, legitimately believed, in a lewd but goofy way, that getting sex-swapped would probably be fun, and that he would be playing with himself within minutes of finding himself attached to boobs.

Now that it's happened, he can't even look at himself.

He follows Cas into their motel room and catches a flash of his reflection in the mirror over the sink at the other end of the room. His stomach does a sick twist and flop, like a dying fish. He keeps his eyes firmly off the mirror and goes to his bag instead.

Cas, on the other hand, walks straight towards the mirror, eyes fixed, and tips his – her – head curiously. He throws his coat and jacket on one of the beds, and her hands go to her shirt – his, his – and start unbuttoning. He shucks the shirt off, tosses it on the bed, and touches her breasts.

His breasts. This is hard.

Cas is turned away, and Dean can't look over at herrr_im,_ because he – they're – they're in line of sight of the mirror, and Dean can't. He just can't. He keeps his eyes on his bag. His toothbrush and toothpaste are already over there by the sink, but he has spares in his bag, and he pulls them out and starts brushing his teeth over here, where it's safe.

Sam's room is next door, but that's no safer than here. He hears another rustle and thump, and glances back in time to see Cas kicking their pants to the side and pushing down their boxers. Great. He introduced an angel to boning and now said angel has zero sense of modesty. Actually, scratch that, modesty was never in Cas' dictionary. But the Cas of several years ago would not have been remotely curious about their changed body, and would have kept their clothes on out of pure lack of caring. _This_ Cas is fingering their nipples, apparently, and bending over to try to get a closer look between their legs.

“I've been in a female vessel before, long ago,” Cas says, “but I've never paid much attention one way or another. This is fascinating.”

Dean grunts, mouth full of toothpaste foam. Rinsing. Fuck. Didn't think of that.

He steels himself and strides across the room towards the sink, brushing past Cas, because damn it if he'll let himself be controlled by one little freakout. He pretends the person in the mirror is a stranger and ignores them like he would ignore someone in a public restroom. He swishes and spits water, but doesn't drink any. No need to encourage his bladder.

“Dean?” Cas asks.

Dean turns around, rubbing water off his chin, and – with the mirror to his back – is finally able to relax the tension in his gut a little bit and actually look at Cas.

He stares, and his jaw goes slightly lax. Hishherrr_their THEIR_ skin is the same tanned and toned, exactly the same, all the way down to the brownish-rose color of their nipples, with relatively small areolas and a pebbled attentiveness that proves that Cas has already been touching them. Cas' tattoos are the same – warding and anti-possession and a small feather in the crook of their elbow, their only concession to sentimentality. His grace could eradicate them with a mere thought, but he'd gotten them the old-fashioned way and he leaves them alone, because in the (always possible) event that his juice gets cut off, he'll have the wards already in place. And also because he likes them.

Cas has not suddenly become some entirely new voluptuous beauty. Aside from the glaring absence between their legs and the general shrinkage, they aren't much different. It's clear that, like Dean, their body's age has not changed. The woman standing before Dean is around forty, just like Jimmy: Original Flavor, with the same furrowed brow lines and smattering of scars. The faint, faded lines of the angel-banishing sigil carved into Cas' chest are still there, although some of the runes carry over the topmost portion of his – her – their breasts. Everything about this Cas is painfully, achingly familiar, except for what isn't.

Dean gives a shaky laugh. “Nice,” he says.

“Are you all right, Dean?” Cas asks. Their voice is still a low register, but distinctly different. The gravel has softened. Dean might even describe it as smoky now. It makes him wildly uncomfortable.

Dean blurts, “What do I call you?”

Cas tilts their head and Dean wants to weep or scream. “Cas, usually.”

“No, I mean,” Dean gestures wildly, “he or she, or they, or something else.”

Cas furrows their brow. “Anything you want, Dean. Whatever makes you most comfortable. If you would like to continue using male pronouns because your experience of me has been male, that is fine.”

“Uh.” Dean swallows. “I'm having... a hard time here. Wrapping my head around it.”

“Then female pronouns would suffice.” Cas takes a step closer. “I know it's different, understanding academically that angels have no gender beyond their vessels, and being confronted with it in a tangible way.”

Dean nods shakily. He realizes he's pressed himself back against the counter as Cas moves closer, and makes himself relax. Cas has always been gorgeous, or at least Dean's always found him gorgeous, and that hasn't changed. As Cas steps decisively into Dean's personal space, not quite touching him but too close to be construed as anything but provocative, Dean feels a coil of heat unfurl in his belly. The pure physical reaction to _'hot willing body close enough to grope'_ is blessedly familiar and comforting. Dean reaches out, ignoring the tremble in his hands, and brushes his fingers down Cas' arm.

Cas' eyelids flutter for a moment. “May I kiss you, Dean?” they ask, raising their hand to Dean's face gingerly, as if Dean might spook.

Dean darts forward and kisses Cas instead. He takes that final step to press his body to Cas', insides lighting up with the knowledge that Cas is naked and curious. Cas' lips are remarkably the same, his jaw is just smoother, and Dean finally understands on an ape-brain physical level that this is not a stranger, this is _Cas,_ he is not cheating on Cas by touching the body in front of him.

Heat surges low in his belly. His hands slide down Cas' shoulders and he moves one to her waist, one to her chest, and when he cups his palm around her breast she surges in with an enthusiastic sound that is exactly Cas, just pitched up. Dean rolls her nipple the same way he always does and she moans into his mouth, kissing deep and demanding, amped up on a crazy day and the excitement of discovering whole new playgrounds of pleasure while this fun, harmless change lasts - 

And then Castiel puts her hands on Dean's boobs, over his shirt, and he short-circuits.

Not in the fun way. Ice claws down his spine and he sucks in a breath against Cas' lips and writhes out of her grasp, banging his hip into the motel sink, face flushed blotchy with aborted arousal. She – no, not she, Cas – lets him go, sensing the sudden change, eyes wide but observing, calculating. The sweat forming on the back of Dean's neck prickles cold. His skin crawls with gooseflesh.

He licks his lips nervously. “Sorry,” he says.

“You aren't all right,” Cas says.

“I'll be fine,” Dean says. “Spell's just not settled yet, I think.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“You know,” Dean says weakly. “Nausea.”

Cas nods slowly. “I'll get dressed. May I borrow one of your shirts?”

Dean nods gratefully, pointing unnecessarily to his duffel. Cas turns away, picks up his white boxers, and steps back into them. He pulls a Black Sabbath shirt out of Dean's bag, slips into it, and Dean tries to take deep breaths.

Now that he's not in the moment, he's aware of something even more upsetting than being reminded that his chest is wrong. That is, his surge of arousal should have led to a certain weight and tightness in his crotch that is just not there. Instead, he feels itchy all over and slightly like he's pissed himself. It's deeply unpleasant. He presses his legs tightly together and wills it all to stop, go away, just leave him feeling minimally normal in his own skin.

After a minute of focusing, he at least feels marginally more centered. Cas steps up next to him at the sink and lets their arms touch lightly while he pours a small glass of water. Dean closes his eyes and takes such comfort from the non-sexually-charged contact that he doesn't even pause to wonder why Cas is getting a drink of water until Cas presses the glass into Dean's hand.

Dean opens his eyes and looks down. Cas is holding out two pills in his palm. “For the nausea,” Cas says.

“Oh,” says Dean. He takes them, swallows them, and chases them with water, vaguely hoping they work on guilt. “Thanks. Hey, uh. Do you mind if we don't -” He points at the two beds. They got a double, as they often do when they're hunting in a state in which getting a single could draw unwanted ire. Usually they share one of the beds.

The stare Cas is giving him is understanding in a way Dean hates.

“It's just, it's too hot,” Dean says. It's the middle of summer in Tennessee, the heat index has been over 100 more often than it hasn't been in their five days here, but the air conditioner in the motel room is fully functional and the air in here is crisp, icy goodness.

“Of course,” says Castiel, and lays their hand on Dean's arm gently. “Get some rest.”

It's been a while since Dean slept fully clothed, and he almost does it tonight, but eventually he talks himself into taking his boots and jeans off before sliding rapidly under the blanket. In the other bed, Cas sits up cross-legged, reading. He still doesn't need to sleep, but he can go into a trance that approximates sleep, something he usually does while tangled up with Dean. Dean suspects that sometimes Cas doesn't trance out but rather lies there all night holding Dean and watching him sleep. The idea doesn't freak him out as much as it used to.

A big part of Dean wishes Cas was holding him now, because he feels all wrong in a way he can't put his finger on and he craves the simple comfort of contact. But he's too afraid of holding Cas, or Cas holding him, turning into Bad Touch Theater again.

So he clears his throat and says, “Night, Cas,” and rolls over to face away from the other bed.

“Sleep well, Dean,” Cas says quietly, and clicks out the light.

Surprisingly, he does.

-

The morning is all business. Dean gives his jeans and his pits a quick sniff test, decides he's fine, and pulls on yesterday's clothes (except for the parts he'd never gotten out of). He forgoes the bathroom because he hasn't drunk anything since yesterday's fast food soda. A quick check of their equipment and he, Cas, and Sam are out the door and back to Wendy's house in no time.

The pissant demon is possessing Wendy's best friend Maria, who turns out to be a little chunky and sporting both a mildly cleft palate and braces. The trapping goes off without a hitch and the moment the demon shows itself and starts shit-talking, Wendy bursts into tears. After a while, Dean can't take the petty taunting anymore and slaps a strip of duct tape over Maria's mouth. Wendy sits down abruptly on the floor and cries harder.

The exorcism flings the girl around the trap perimeter a little bit, and Wendy shrieks with alarm, but eventually the demon leaches out around the duct tape and pisses off back to hell. Maria is unconscious, but wakes with a shout when Dean rips the duct tape off her face. She looks wildly around the room, sees tear-soaked Wendy sprawled on the floor, and bursts into sobs herself.

Dean sighs, unties Maria, and leaves the shed with Sam and Cas while the two girls hug it out.

“Good thing the demon didn't ride that girl too hard,” Sam says. “That could've had a worse ending.” It's true, Maria seems physically unharmed. She'll need therapy for years, but hurrah, a success nonetheless.

“Celebrate?” Dean asks. “Saw a bar outside town.”

Sam shakes his head. “It's eleven a.m., Dean. Besides, we've got some shopping to do.”

Dean groans.

They spend some time cleaning up the shed, reclaiming and repacking unused salt and holy water. At noon, they're ready to head out, and Sam pulls the girls aside for one last lecture on safe spellcasting (i.e. that there isn't any such thing, and that Abstinence Only is the best solution).

Wendy nods throughout the lecture, and as far as Dean can tell, she really is taking it to heart. He doesn't think they'll have to worry about her again. When Sam is done, Dean steps in and chucks Wendy on the shoulder – not exactly a friendly punch, because she winces in real pain, but he follows it with, “You'll be fine, kid.”

They walk off to the car. Just as Dean is shutting the trunk on the last of the supplies, Wendy and Maria break from a whispering huddle and Wendy comes running over with a piece of paper in her hands. “I'm really sorry,” she says, gesturing at the three of them, “about, um, yesterday, and that I can't change you back. So, this is, um...” She holds the paper out in a shaking hand. Dean takes it. It's covered with numbers. “It's, um, places to start with getting the stuff you need,” Wendy says, bottom lip wobbling. “And my number, if you have questions. And I've got some money saved from my summer job, I can – I can give you some, to help.”

Dean looks up at her. A tear spills down her face, but she's keeping the sobs suppressed this time. He reaches out and ruffles her stupid hair. “You got a good life,” he says. “And your heart's in the right place. If you want to do good, try being Vicki's friend and maybe talking to her parents, okay?”

Wendy nods jerkily, then runs back to Maria.

Dean glances in the rearview as they drive away and is pretty sure he spots them reaching out to hold each other's hands. Best friends. Yeah.

Dean jerks his head at the paper he's handed to Sam, who is currently inputting Wendy's number in his phone. “What the hell is that?” he asks.

“I think,” Sam says, “it's guesses at our bra sizes.”

-

The only place Dean knows one is supposed to go to buy women's underwear, in his limited experience, is Victoria's Secret. Wendy's cheat sheet immediately tells them different. This is how they end up at a strip mall, standing in front of a Lane Bryant. Sam has done some googling on the drive over and determined that there are apparently people here who specialize in measuring women for their bra sizes.

“Why?” Dean asks.

“How else would you know what size to buy?” Sam asks, exasperated.

“Uh, looking?”

Sam shakes his head. “I know it's been a while since Jess, but trust me, Dean, she told me some shit. This isn't going to be nearly as easy as you want it to be.”

Dean can't bring himself to park in front of the store they want; he parks a little ways off, by the Bass Outlet, figuring that he can stomach the whole thing better if he keeps his mind on camping gear. Sam, thank god, doesn't say anything. When they step into the Lane Bryant, Dean feels instantly and insanely out of place and has to use every ounce of willpower he has not to walk right back out.

The clothes are fine, the people are fine, there's nothing wrong with anything around him, there's only what's wrong with _him._ That red blouse over there? Great. Love to see it on a woman, filled out with curves and soft flesh. Love to unwrap someone from it like a present. But _wear_ it?

There's cold sweat on his brow.

A sales lady asks if she can help them. Sam takes a deep breath, then walks over with a charming, slightly sheepish smile. Even with lady parts he can work the room like a star. Dean breathes a little sigh of relief that he's taking point.

The most intensely uncomfortable twenty minutes of Dean's life follows. Sam goes to the rooms in the back with the nice sales lady and comes back looking slightly traumatized but also triumphant. He talks briefly to Cas, quiet enough not to be overheard, likely warning Cas not to be a fucking weirdo and tell the store worker anything that will get them kicked out. Cas – who is wearing their slacks again, belted tightly, but also Dean's Black Sabbath shirt still – goes out of sight into the back.

Sam hurriedly picks out a pair of bras in the size he's been told, talking to Dean under his breath. “It's fine,” he says. “Kinda awkward, but she's got a measuring tape and this chart, it just takes a second.”

“Fuck me,” Dean says, because he really wants to be making fun of Sam's bra choices right now, because when will he ever get the opportunity again?, but his intestines are in his throat.

Then Cas is back and looking curiously at the bras, fingering the different brightly colored fabrics and gravitating towards lace, and the sales lady gives Dean a warm smile and he's following her back to a fitting room with a poster of mathematic gibberish on the wall, and she's holding out a long strip of plastic like she means to garrote him with it.

“I'm going to go under your arms, turn around for me, let your arms hang as normal, okay honey, try not to tense up, all right, now your bust -”

Dean dissociates.

When he comes fully to himself again, he's in the passenger seat of the Impala, Sam behind the wheel. He vaguely remembers ripping something 38B and black off a rack and tossing it to Sam before walking directly out the door. He vaguely remembers Castiel's voice, or something close to it, saying his name.

He doesn't remember crying, but his face is wet.

He drags his sleeve over his face and shakes his head. “I'm done,” he says.

Sam sits in silence, fingers tapping the steering wheel out of rhythm. The engine is purring, blasting the A/C to tame the southern heat. “Cas and I need shoes,” Sam says finally. “But I'll drop you off at the motel if you want.”

Dean stares out the windshield. He wants to go to a bar. But he says, “Fine.” He has Jack in the supplies.

Cas hasn't said anything, but Dean can feel the cool stare on the back of his neck.

Sam doesn't say anything on the way back to the motel, and no one makes any move towards touching the accursed Lane Bryant bag lying next to Cas in the backseat. Cas watches Dean leave, fingers laced in their lap, saying nothing. Dean barely glances at them.

Once in the room, he pulls one of the bedsheets off, uses a couple of nails out of his kit and his bootheel to tack the sheet over the mirror, fills one of the little water glasses with whiskey, slumps onto a bed to drink, and eventually goes to sleep.

-

Castiel is quiet for the rest of the afternoon, and Sam isn't sure what to do with it.

He never asks about Cas and Dean's alone time when they get separate rooms. He can't say he never asks about their “personal life” because what is that, exactly? Sam sees them at basically every hour of the day. He can say, with certainty, that he does not ask about their _sex_ life, which he already knows too much about just from overheard noises. He bought a pair of noise-cancelling headphones last month for good reason.

Mostly what Sam doesn't ask about is their... emotional state, he supposes. They seem solid. They communicate better than ever, they give each other comforting touches, they're both still focused and professional and generally happy. Exactly what form their therapy takes, Sam doesn't know – if they lie awake and talk into the wee hours or if they just fuck and cuddle and leave the rest unspoken. He imagines it's somewhere in between.

So it's with some trepidation that he asks Cas, “Did you guys talk about this at all last night?”

Cas glances over at him. He's moved to the front seat. The back bench is gathering a small pile of shopping bags. Cas considers for a moment, then says, “Not exactly. We kissed, and it seemed normal for a moment, until it – wasn't. And he was very upset that he didn't know what pronouns to use to address me.”

Sam sighs. “Okay. I think we need to take a different approach with him.”

The hunt and their motel have been in a dinky suburb of Memphis. Sam takes the next exit ramp to drive them into the city proper and starts racking his brain for where certain things might be found. This would be so much easier if he could order from the internet, but he'd have to send the package to one of their various P.O. box drops and it would be days before they could get to it.

It's well after dark when they roll back into Collierville with a whole bunch of shopping and a sack of Vietnamese takeout. Sam made an executive decision that he wanted pho no matter how much Dean complains about the smell of fish sauce. The bahn mi ought to resemble a roast beef sandwich enough that Dean will eat it.

Cas opens his and Dean's room and holds the door for Sam, who is loaded down with bags. Sam steps in and his stomach immediately sinks – the blackout curtains are drawn, there's a distinct smell of alcohol in the air, and Dean is laid out on one of the beds, clothed and snoring.

Sighing, Sam sets down his stuff and goes over to kick the bed while Cas shuts the door. “Up, sunshine, it's almost bedtime again.”

Dean grunts and rolls over, smashing his face into the pillow. “Fffuhck 'ff,” he slurs.

Sam goes to the sink for a cup of tapwater, noting the sheet over the mirror without a word. Coming back, he pours a thin stream of water into Dean's ear.

Dean flails upright, punching Sam's arm away, other hand groping under the pillow for his gun before he fully realizes what's up. He blinks Sam into focus and lets go of the gun, opting for a kick at the crotch instead. Sam dances out of the way, laughing. “Gotta find somewhere else to aim, dude,” he says.

“Pretty sure a boot up the vag would hurt plenty,” Dean snaps. He shakes himself, scrubbing a finger into his ear in an attempt to get the water out. “What's up?”

“Dinner,” Sam says, throwing the sandwich in Dean's direction. Dean's alert enough to catch it, so he must not have drunk too much.

“'Kay,” Dean says, unwraps a corner of the sandwich and sniffs it. He flinches back. “That ain't right. Where'd you let him go, Cas?”

“Phuong Long,” Cas says idly, removing cartons of cellophane noodles from a bag. He opens one and pokes at it.

“In the soup,” Sam says, taking the other seat at the table. He shows Cas how to assemble the pho. Cas' vessel isn't so hungry he's scarfing cheeseburgers again, but his curiosity occasionally rears its head like this, especially when Sam manages to sneak in a cuisine other than Haute State Fair.

Sam keeps a side-eye on Dean while he shifts around, grumbling, then seems to close his eyes and steel his nerves before standing up and stomping to the bathroom. A few minutes later he emerges, washes his hands (interesting; not a 100% habit with Dean), sits and starts eating, looking grim.

“Bluh,” he says at length, picking orange bits out of his sandwich. “Who puts carrot on a sub.”

“It's a bahn mi,” Sam says around a mouthful of bean sprouts.

Dean gives him a look of flat disgust.

Cas offers him a taste of his pho. “It's spicy, and it doesn't have carrots,” he says, holding out his spoon.

“No,” Dean says. “And that mouth ain't coming anywhere near me until you brush your teeth.”

“Be nice,” Sam scolds.

“I thought kissing was no longer an option,” Cas says, and sips the spoonful of soup. He doesn't sound sad, just matter of fact.

Dean picks a few more carrots out. “Never said it was off the table,” he mutters.

Sam groans. “Dean,” he says, putting his spoon down, “we need to talk about this. You.”

“Nothin' to talk about,” Dean says. “Spell's just sittin' wrong with me. It'll settle in.”

“It won't,” Sam says. “I mean, it is. Settled in. I called Wendy to check with her again on her process. She used a bit of herself as the catalyst – just a hair, I think – and because of that, the spell gave us each some little bit of _her,_ not just ourselves through a mirror darkly or whatever. That's why I need her glasses, and why Cas shrunk like a wool sweater in a hot cycle. And...” He trails off.

“And what?” Dean demands. “I got her fucking mental health problems?”

“Well... yeah.”

Dean blinks. “Excuse me?”

Sam sighs. “That kid down the street, Vicki? Was kind of a test run. Wendy's not the happiest camper at the tea party, if the tea party involves tutus and pink, you get me?”

Dean stares, mouth open. “No?” he says, eventually. “What, she's a tomboy? I mean sure, she wore a lot of overalls.”

“I mean she's kind of dysphoric,” Sam says. “She said she's – fluid, undecided.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“It means she's not a girl, Dean,” Sam sighs, “not all the time. And when she isn't feeling like a girl, her own body freaks her out. And I think the spell gave it to you. Possibly doubled by your own -” He waves vaguely. “Freaking out.”

“I am not,” Dean says, but it's weak.

“You've had your insides on your outsides and barely batted an eye,” Sam says flatly. “I've seen you superglue your guts back in. Zachariah gave you stomach cancer and Pestilence gave you bubonic plague and you still got your job done. You, crying over having boobs?”

“Okay, enough,” Dean says, flushing blotchy red, voice thick with shame and anger.

“I'm just saying,” Sam says, gentling his tone, “that on an average day, you might not like it, but you could tough it out. It isn't an average day. You've got no personal failings here. That little voice I know you got talking in the back of your head, that's Dad and demons and everything bad that likes to shit-talk us, amplified a thousandfold by shitty teenage magic. So don't listen to it, okay?”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean growls, but the hard edge is out of his tone for the moment, and Sam thinks he's gotten through.

“Anyway, I got some stuff,” Sam says, toeing through the bags scattered on the floor and kicking one towards Dean.

Dean puts his half-eaten sandwich down and picks up the bag. He looks from it to Sam with an unimpressed look. “You're doing such a good job at this therapy thing, Sammy,” he says, flashing the Fantasyland: Adult Superstore logo. “I may have to kill myself. Just bring me back when the month's up.”

Cas sits forward, looking alarmed. Sam waves him back, glaring at Dean. “Only brick and mortar place I could find them, so shut up and be grateful.”

Dean rips the bag apart and glares at the thing inside. “Tank top,” he says. “Great, I got about six more in the trunk.”

“Nope,” says Sam.

Dean shakes it out and studies it for a second. “Okay, I give up.”

“Binder,” Sam says. “I think it's the right size. Don't sleep in it, but otherwise you should be fine.”

Dean fiddles with it, pulling to test the fabric, looking at how it's put together. Sam sees him start to ask another question, but then apparently decide that the device in his hands is self-explanatory. He puts it to the side of the bed and takes another bite of his sandwich instead. “Okay,” he mumbles around a mouthful of beef, carrot, radish, and cucumber.

Sam nods, goes back to his dinner, and considers the matter settled. He glances up at Cas, who is picking at his soup and looking sidelong at Dean.

They finish eating in slightly awkward silence. Sam clears his throat, picks up the bags containing the things he's bought for himself, and heads to the door. “See you in the morning,” he says, looking over his shoulder at the other two. Then he wrinkles his nose and adds, “And take a shower, Dean.”

Dean flips him off. Sam laughs and steps outside, clicking the door behind him. The late evening Tennessee air is humid as the inside of a fish tank and the heat of the day is rolling up from the parking lot in a choking miasma. He escapes into his own room and tosses the bags on the table – bras, couple pairs of jeans, one shoebox. He doesn't know how long he'll have to deal with this, and it had been tempting to only buy one of everything, but realistically he can't wear one pair of pants for a whole month, not if they're working. He figures that once he changes back he'll drop this stuff at the nearest Goodwill, if it hasn't gotten ruined on a hunt.

He flops onto a bed, enjoying what little things he can, like the fact that his heels don't hang off the end of the mattress. Dean losing his shit has made Sam push his own discomfort to the back of the closet so he can focus on helping his brother, but none of this is real thrilling to him, either. He's already wearing one of the bras he bought, having awkwardly wriggled into it in a cramped gas station bathroom. He had only barely caught himself from walking into the men's room out of habit. Thankfully it was a onesie, not a bunch of stalls, and he hadn't had to look any women in the eye while he invaded the space where they have every right to feel safe.

He's already decided they need to go northwest. Find a job in Portland or Seattle or San Francisco. Dean's going to bitch about it, but Sam knows they can't manage this in the Deep South. Slip-ups will happen and cops might get called. At least they need to be in a state where it wouldn't be literally illegal if they walk into the door with a skirt-less stick figure on it. It's frustrating, but Sam recognizes that at least he has the option of just packing up and leaving. People around here for whom it's a problem – little Vicki, and Wendy, and however many more – can't walk away.

Sam sighs and gets up to get undressed for sleep. Personally, he's a lot more irritated by needing glasses than he is by carrying a couple more pounds on his chest. He can only take living with this stupid spell one day at a time, and right now, that means getting Dean right enough in the head to push through the next month. And that means finding a job.

He strips out of the bra and his jeans, settles down with his laptop, and starts digging.

-

In the long silence after Sam walks out, Dean stares at the floor while Castiel stares at Dean. Dean knows Cas is staring because for one thing, when is he not?, and for another, Dean can feel it in the back of his neck and the arches of his feet and the fine hairs rising along his arms as though there's a lightning strike in the room.

“I'll clean up this trash, and you'll take a shower,” Cas says, finally.

“I will, will I?” Dean says with no real heat.

“I won't look at you as you dress,” Cas says. “And then we can talk about what is or isn't... on the table.”

Dean swallows, chasing away the odd flavor combination of his radishy-limey-beef sandwich, which he actually did like, but can never admit as much to Sam. He stands.

Cas looks up at Dean and adds, “And you will think of me and refer to me as 'he,' and 'him,' as you always have. Does that make it easier?”

Does it? Yeah, actually, Dean realizes, looking at the altered but familiar face staring him down and giving him orders. Stripping the ambiguity away, taking the choice out of Dean's hands, it makes it so much easier. He lets his eyes rove over Cas' slim figure, sharp cheekbones, fuller lips, and the curvature under Dean's old band shirt, and somehow even with all that evidence in front of him Dean can still think of Cas as he.

Dean nods, then goes to take a shower. Sam was right – it's been a couple of work-heavy days, and he's ripe.

He's feeling better, somehow. Whether it's the absence of the mirror, or eating a square meal, or being able to put a name to this feeling, or all of the above, the, uh... the dysphoria, Sam called it, it's not so bad right now. He steps into the shower and the burst of enveloping steam and pounding hot water send a ripple of pleasure through him that he hasn't been able to feel since the spell hit. Simple, physical contentment. He's even able to look down after a moment, and the sight of breasts makes him grin, then laugh out loud.

He washes up quick, able for once to touch himself all over without feeling the need to crawl out of his skin through his own throat. He doesn't linger, scared the feeling won't last and that if he tries to push this too far he'll lose the thin thread of stability. He tugs on boxer-briefs because at least with a snug fit he can't be reminded of the lack of movement between his legs, and a loose t-shirt keeps him from noticing too much how different the shape of his chest is.

When he walks out of the bathroom, the detritus of dinner and all the shopping bags are gone, and all the stuff Sam and Cas bought over the day is folded and stacked neatly on the bed Dean slept in last night. Cas is sitting up straight-backed and cross-legged on the other bed, wearing the Sabbath shirt and Jimmy's good-Christian-boy white boxers, barefoot, looking both smaller and more determined than Dean has ever seen him. The declaration that Dean won't be sleeping alone tonight couldn't be clearer.

Dean runs his hand back through his damp hair, spiking it, and goes to the bed, sitting sideways to face Cas, ankle hooked under his opposite knee. Cas gives him a questioning look but makes no move to reach out to Dean.

“I feel better,” Dean says at last.

Cas tilts his head by a whisper.

“I'm sorry I freaked. It was just...”

“When I touched you,” Cas finishes.

Dean nods. “I think you could, right now,” he says, quirking his lips into a smirk.

Cas gives him a faint smile but says, “No. I want to touch you, Dean, but not to explore a minor alteration in genitalia. I want you to sleep in my arms, and let me kiss you, and let me do what I can to help you. I want to bring you pleasure, and that is not synonymous with sex. So, let me ask you. What do you want?”

Dean stares at him for a long minute, then bursts into a wide grin. “Come on, Cas, what's so different from normal? I want to make you come screaming my name.”

Cas' eyes widen slightly. “Oh,” he says, caught off guard from his gentle righteousness.

Dean gets up onto the bed on his knees and moves into Cas' personal space, leaning close, putting his hands on Cas' knees and sliding them up his thighs. “Hey,” he says. “I'm cool right now, I really am. If I'm not, I'll tell you. You seem awful curious and I _definitely_ want to help you test drive your new ride. You down for that?”

Cas' tongue flickers out to wet his lips. He nods, gaze flickering between Dean's eyes and mouth. He cups a hand around Dean's jaw, splitting his fingers around the shell of Dean's ear. “Give me some parameters,” he says. “Tell me now what not to do, so I don't lose you. Please.”

Dean leans back a little. He's already hot but not quite up to bothered. He licks his lips. “I don't think I, um. I think I just want to do this for you, okay?” Cas scrunches his brow. “Hands are okay wherever except for the new stuff.”

“You don't wish me to reciprocate,” Cas clarifies.

“I wish you to have a hell of a good time and let me worry about me,” Dean counters, leaning forward again. He barely catches Castiel's nod before he's pressing his lips to Cas' and falling into an easy, heated rhythm.

Castiel lets Dean bear him back onto the pillows, wriggling down to get aligned, returning Dean's eager kiss in enthusiastic kind. Cas' hand slides around to the back of Dean's head, other hand going to Dean's hip, and they stay there, kneading and clutching in response to Dean's tongue and technique, but not roaming. Dean relaxes, not realizing he'd been holding himself tense, waiting for the hand on the chest like yesterday. There's none of that oily wrongness, like he's a demon wearing the wrong meatsuit. There's just a familiar surge of heat and the tingling in his extremities that mean the party's starting.

Dean spreads his knees for balance and brings both hands up from Cas' legs to his shoulders and slides them down the length of Cas' new body in a long, merciless tease, dragging the t-shirt lightly with his fingertips, going around the outside of Cas' breasts, until he reaches the bottom of the shirt and slips his hands underneath onto warm skin. Cas is already breathing hard into Dean's mouth. He breaks the kiss, pressing his head back into the pillows, and swallows hard. “This feels different,” he says uselessly, rolling his hips up against Dean's touch, chasing something he clearly can't name.

“You said you had female vessels before,” Dean says, pushing Cas' shirt up.

“You know perfectly well I never – ah.” Dean's slid his hands onto Cas' breasts, circling the areolas softly with his thumbs. “It's convenient that you know what you're doing,” Cas says, dropping his eyelids half-closed to focus on the sensations.

“There's always a benefit to dating above your experience level,” Dean says, pulls Cas' shirt up to his neck, and drops his mouth to a nipple.

“Oh,” Cas says weakly, and gasps, and Dean busts out every trick he's ever learned in a lifetime of following his own advice, and between Dean's tongue and short fingernails Cas devolves into a panting mess pretty quickly. Cas is the one who drops his hand from Dean's waist and starts to shove at his boxers, getting them halfway down his thighs before Dean raises his lips from Cas' collarbone, massages his breast, and laughs, “Eager.”

“It's maddening not to touch you back,” Cas says breathlessly. “Distract me.”

“Shit, well, if you ask like that,” Dean says, and immediately reaches between Cas' legs.

The last time he was with a woman, it was Lisa. He remembers it distinctly because it hadn't been a Last Time. It had been an ordinary time, loving and hot and good but also routine. It had not been sex in anticipation of disaster, or in celebration of averted disaster, which is true of a great deal of the sex Dean has ever had. Probably the majority. Very rarely has he ever had... _mundane_ sex. Late night cuddling turned warm and then hot and then sleepy. Sleep-in weekend mornings with sunlight through curtains and someone kissing him awake with coffee and desire.

In fact, he's only ever had that kind of sex with Lisa and, recently, with Cas. He has loved other people. He has fucked around a lot, but he has also made love. That isn't unique. What is unique, is sex today with the certainty of sex again, with the same partner, tomorrow – and the day after, and the day after, into perpetuity. Sex released from the intensifying bondage of immediacy, sex without the caveat of 'now or never.' Sex that doesn't have to be everything to everyone, all at once.

Dean's used to sex without intimacy. What he had with Lisa and what he has with Cas? Those can be intimacy without sex. It's an unending novelty, a miracle made doubly miraculous that it happened twice in one lifetime, and he doesn't expect to get a third chance, nor does he want one. He wants _this_ chance, forever. Now that he's got Castiel, he never intends to let go.

As he teases his fingers through wiry dark hair and along the outer folds of Cas' labia, he realizes that he's grinning and laughing against Cas' throat because this is _fun._ He has missed this, in some mild way, since he fell into bed with Cas and got used to a steady diet of flat chest and hard cock. He hasn't felt deprived or anything – like Cas put it, a 'minor alteration in genitalia' is not something he'd ever trade Castiel's presence for. He's missed vaginas sort of like they're a hobby he lost interest in. But this is getting to have his cake and eat it too, and he's loving it. He muffles his laughter on Cas' lips and shares his breath and lets Cas take his wrist and silently demand that he do more than tease with a couple of fingers.

Dean leans up, licking his lips, and says, “You can pull my hair all you want,” and walks back on his knees to get in position.

It all runs together in a happy blur after that, mouth full of musky slick that tastes remarkably similar to Cas' precome, Cas splayed out whining and grinding into his face, hands failing to get a good grip on Dean's hair and digging nails against his scalp instead. Dean licks until every fold is thick and soft and Cas is dripping, gets his tongue inside for a taste, slides in a finger while he rises up over Cas to share a quick messy kiss that leaves Cas' chin shiny and his pussy clenching hard around the second finger Dean's working in.

Cas comes the first time with a cry, arching his hips into Dean's mouth. Dean relents, abandoning Cas' clit, but leaves his fingers inside, still massaging, rubbing in and out in smooth, slow strokes. He raises his head while Cas is whimpering a little and shivering with the comedown, says, “I have some interesting news for you about refractory periods,” fucks his fingers in deep and crooked towards the front, and dives back in full throttle.

The second time Cas comes he does, in fact, scream Dean's name. The lightbulbs over the sink flicker and pop, and the room smells like tornado weather.

Dean sits back on his heels, catches Castiel's gaze, and deliberately licks his fingers clean.

After a minute, Cas rasps, “This anatomical configuration doesn't experience refractory periods.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Exactly.”

Cas takes another few measured breaths. “How many?”

“Huh? Oh, I dunno. Personal record I've gotten out of a chick is five in twenty minutes,” he says, and if he sounds smug he can't help it.

Cas levers himself up onto his elbows, still looking shaky. “You may do that as much as you like before the spell wears off.”

Dean laughs, rolling off the bed to go wash his hands and face. Cas makes a vague noise of discontent at his leaving, but sprawls out on his back again when Dean returns. Dean crawls over Cas, wipes sticky mess off his chin, and kisses him while his lips are still wet with tap water.

“I miss your penis,” Cas murmurs after a few minutes. His smoke-on-the-water voice makes it seem like what he said should have been sexy, but as soon as Dean parses his words he bursts into laughter against Cas' cheek.

“Sorry,” Dean hiccups when Cas pulls back and frowns. “Sorry, that was just so wrong.”

“What was wrong about it? I was just thinking that your fingers felt very good but something deeper and harder would feel...”

Dean stops his snickering with some effort and gives Cas another quick, dirty kiss. “I know how much you love my dick, Cas,” he says. “It'll be back.”

“Mm.” Cas wraps his arms around Dean's waist, face in Dean's throat. After a minute he says, “You're sure you're all right?” His hand slides down Dean's side, fingers resting on skin between the hiked-up hem of Dean's shirt and the elastic waist of his shorts. Cas makes no move to push the touch further, but Dean has great sympathy for the feeling of uselessness Cas must be struggling with. Dean is a very giving partner in bed, and Cas wants to emulate him in everything. Even in the best possible context, being told to lie back and think of England pretty much sucks.

“Yeah,” Dean sighs. He'd gotten turned on enough to dampen his shorts, and right now that doesn't bother him, but he's not interested in ruining the moment by testing it to breaking. And he's finding the dampness and vague, all-encompassing itch that accompanies arousal in this body to be, if nothing else, easier to ignore than an erection usually is. “Maybe another day.”

“All right,” Cas murmurs, and moves his hand to rest on top of Dean's shirt. “You should sleep.”

It isn't all that late, but Dean's too comfortable to argue. He's also too comfortable to get up and turn off the light switch by the door. “You couldn't've blown out the overhead, could ya,” he grumbles, and tries to roll away to go get it, but Cas tightens his grip around Dean's waist. “Buddy, I can sleep through a lot, but it's bright in here,” Dean sighs.

A furrow appears between Cas' brows and Dean spots the barest flicker of silvery light behind his eyes before the room drops into darkness.

“Nice,” Dean says, and snuggles in for some decent sleep.

Cas says nothing, but Dean can practically feel his tiny smile.

-

The morning reveals that Cas accidentally nuked the power for the whole motel, plus several surrounding city blocks. They pack up and check out in a hurry, deciding it would be best to bounce before the motel proprietor could check the state of their rooms. Dean and Cas' is littered with broken glass and the sheet is still nailed over the mirror. Good thing they paid in cash or their fake credit cards would be soaking up quite a few extra damages charges.

Sam is as grumpy as ever. “I don't know why I thought this would slow you two down for half a minute,” he bitches as soon as they're piled into the car.

“Ah, but I bet we slept better than you did,” Dean says cheerily.

“I slept fine,” Sam grouses, “but my phone's dead because someone blew out the power grid.”

Cas clears his throat awkwardly. “I was trying to hit the light switch,” he says. “My focus was still... fuzzy.”

Sam mutters something unwholesome under his breath.

“Jealousy's a bad look, Sammy-girl!” Dean says, cranking the music and settling in for a comfy morning's drive. “Take you out on the town, find you a nice man, change your whole tune.”

Sam snorts, wrangling the car charger for his phone out of his pack. “Our parts are different, Dean, not our tastes.” He plugs in the phone, then pauses and looks out the windshield for a moment. “Oh, shit,” he mutters. “I could try to pick someone up. Or is that lying?”

“It's your own body,” Cas supplies from the backseat. “Expressing interest in a woman would not be an act of deception.”

“But they'd probably be gay, and I'm...”

Dean reaches over and smacks Sam on the back of the head. “Sammy, are you looking for a medal or a literal once-in-a-lifetime lay? You don't spill your guts about all kinds of shit when you pick up chicks. I think you could stow 'yesterday I had a dick' down there with 'a couple years ago I got possessed by Satan.' Long as everybody likes what they see, don't overthink it.”

Sam snorts again, pulling his current journal out of his bag and flipping to his latest notes. “Well, it'll have to depend on the state of the bar scene in Tacoma.”

“Washington?”

“Yeah.”

“That's three days nonstop, six with sleep.”

“Then you should probably take the exit for 55 North and step on it.”

“Sure hope it's not urgent,” Dean says sarcastically. “What's the case, and who's out there we could call?”

“Relax, Dean, it's not a rush job.” Sam finds his entry. “Uh, a living history museum called Fort Nisqually has started doing an escape room thing, and -”

“A what?”

“You know, where they lock you in a room and you have to get out inside an hour by solving puzzles. It's a game.”

Dean stares at the passing cars for a moment. “Dude, that's not a game, that's the plot of a Saw movie.”

Sam shrugs. “Other people don't have lives as exciting as ours.”

Dean shudders and shakes himself. “Ugh, fine. And people at the museum are, what – getting eaten, going missing, spontaneously combusting...?”

“Well...” Sam makes a face. “No, they're just seeing visions of the past. Spectral figures in old-timey costumes walking around, flickering, reenacting their deaths, stuff like that. One girl who worked there broke her ankle running from a specter, and a bunch of tourists got non-fatally squashed by a barn wall that fell down after the contractors fixing it quit because they were spooked by the place. It's all been happening since the escape room event started, but that opened three months ago. Seems interesting enough to look into, but we probably won't miss anything vital in a week.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Good money's on haunted object in the puzzle room. Sounds like a compelling reason to drive for a week. Anything closer?”

“Not really,” Sam says honestly. “It's quiet out there. There's signs of a rugaru in Wisconsin, but I texted Bobby about it and he said Tracy and her crew are already on it. The last thing I got out of my phone before it died, by the way.” He glares.

Dean shrugs unapologetically. “I guess this is downtime, then. Hey, speaking of Bobby, this route's gonna take us right through Sioux Falls. We, uh...” He hesitates and looks over at Sam. “We oughta stop in, you think?”

Sam makes a noncommital face and busies himself with reading his notes.

“You texted him.”

Sam clears his throat.

“Don't want him to hear your new chipmunk impression?”

Sam huffs an annoyed sigh. “No, I don't care if he knows, it's just -”

Dean laughs, but he's secretly grateful Sam didn't say anything to the old man. “No, I get it. It's embarrassing.”

“No!” Sam is definitely blushing. “I mean, there's nothing embarrasing about being -”

“Sam, I ain't saying anything's embarrassing about being a strong, independent woman who don't need no man, I'm saying maybe we don't let Bobby know we got whammied with a spell even angel mojo can't fix by a shitty teenage hedge witch with a social justice vendetta and baby's first evil temptress of the night.”

“Uh,” Sam says, red as a beet. “Yep. I agree that let's... not tell him that.”

There's a faint choking out of the backseat. Dean looks around in time to see Castiel put a fist over his mouth to keep the chuckles buried.

“Laugh it up, fuzzball,” Dean mutters, and the Impala streaks down the highway, and everything is all right.

-

They opt for the six day drive with intervals for sleep, checking constantly for any jobs that seem more urgent. Nothing rears its head. Either the monsters aren't eating, or they're eating too quietly to notice. The most digging Sam does is when he spots a tiny local article from Mississippi about a man getting his neck nearly severed by a flying fanbelt, who held his head on and drove himself to the hospital. A few phone calls prove that, unfortunately, it's just one of those freak accidents that really do happen in the real world.

Sam hangs up on the last call with a frustrated sigh. “If one more good ol' boy calls me _sweetheart,”_ he snaps.

“Aw, darlin', don't be like that,” Dean drawls, and Sam punches him in the leg.

Cas is quieter than usual, which is a feat unto itself. Dean checks on him constantly, but he always smiles and nods away Dean's concern. He usually eats something every couple of days out of boredom or curiosity, but after three days on the road, he's politely declined every offer of a burger, sundae, pickle chip, or even the small container of seaweed salad Sam picked up for himself from a Kroger sushi station. This last one is the final straw, because as disgusting as the stringy green shit is, it's exactly the kind of thing Cas would go all Man Vs. Food on.

“Seriously,” Dean demands of him that night as they pack it in for bed at the local Shithole Inn. “What's wrong?”

Cas reaches out and takes Dean's hand, pulling him towards the bed and down onto the mattress, which is lumpy and thin compared to the last two nights. Dean allows Cas to distract him with long, sloppy kisses for a while, but when a bedspring pokes him in the knee he finally sits up in irritation and gives Cas a look that says 'talk or I'll smite.'

Castiel sighs, rolling his shoulders back against the sheets, and gives Dean a rueful grimace. “I've been working to keep my vessel's reactions under control,” he says.

“What do you mean, reactions?”

“The spell is failing quickly on me,” Cas says. “My grace is corroding it before its natural course. It's all very unpleasant and I haven't wanted to worry you.”

Dean lies down next to him, reaching out to tangle their fingers. “Unpleasant, like -”

“Yarf,” Cas says seriously, and Dean can't help laughing.

He coughs himself to a stop and says, “Sorry. How long, you think?”

“Another day or two,” Cas says. “I've been keeping my senses buried deep under a buffer of grace to prevent myself from feeling the cramps and nausea. The frequency has been increasing.”

“Is it constant, or -”

“It comes and goes.”

“Feel bad now?”

Cas smiles. “No. And this might be the last opportunity.”

Dean shivers, rolls on top, and wastes none of their precious time.

-

The following night, Dean wakes in the wee hours to the sound of Castiel's low cry, and he's got a knife out to attack the threat before he realizes there is no threat, only Cas writhing in agony and drenched in sweat. “Dean,” Cas croaks, looking at him with such raw vulnerability, before curling up again and moaning into the pillows. His skin is crawling all over, like bugs under wallpaper.

Dean tamps down his rising bile, wraps his arms around Cas and holds him close so that he doesn't have to watch the slow-mo melting horror show. Dean thinks he can feel Cas growing, but it's hard to tell when random fits and spasms of bone and flesh keep jutting and jumping around like a bad stop motion animation.

It's over within the hour. Cas goes slack in Dean's arms and after a moment Dean releases him just enough to pull back and look.

Cas opens his reddened eyes and meets Dean's gaze. It's definitely _him_ this time, and even though it's only been four days it feels like a month since Dean saw Cas' real face. Well, Jimmy's real face, but whatever. This is Cas' face to Dean, and if Cas ever ends up Crystler-sized again, Dean's going to have to demand that at least one of Cas' multitude of faces be this one.

“Hey,” Dean says, smiling.

Cas sighs and closes his eyes again. “Ow,” he mutters.

“Better now?”

Cas' lips curl up in a smile, eyes still closed. “I will be. I'm going to let the vessel sleep while I tend to my grace. It's... bruised.”

Dean nods, nudges Cas to turn around until he's the little spoon, and after a few moments, Cas' breathing slows and evens out into rare slumber. It's strange, holding Cas like this. Cas has always been the smaller of them, not by much, but just enough that Dean is used to his body feeling lithe in his arms, not bulky. And after the spell, Cas being inflicted with Wendy's vertically challenged nature had only exaggerated that size difference.

Now Cas is too large in Dean's arms and eventually Dean has to roll to the side, working a cramp out of his shoulder from being held at too high an angle. Cas has been sleeping naked these past few nights, but it occurs to Dean that had he been clothed, he probably would have ripped out of his temporary wardrobe Hulk-style. The mental image makes him grin, which breaks him out of his funk of unease, and eventually, he manages to get back to sleep.

-

Dean is around the side of the building filling their cooler with free ice and Cas is waiting by the car when Sam emerges from his room, scrubbing his eyes. Sam's halfway across the parking lot before he registers the sight in front of him and does a double take. He blinks, then breaks into a grin. “Oh, thank Christ,” he says, striding over to Cas and clapping him on the shoulder. “This thing _will_ break.”

Cas wrinkles his nose. “I told you it would.”

Sam tosses his duffel in the trunk. “That was faster than I expected.”

“Like I told Dean, my nature is corrosive to that sort of magic. It failed early.” Cas reaches out to stop Sam with a hand on his arm, and Sam looks at him, questioning. In a low, serious voice, Cas says, “I was able to suppress the physical discomfort, Sam, and now that I'm unfettered by mortal magic I may be able to help the two of you when the time comes, but please understand that it isn't going to be easy or pleasant. It won't happen overnight like this did.”

Sam swallows. “Okay.”

Cas lets go of his arm and touches his shoulder briefly. His eyes crinkle in a small smile. “It is very strange to look you directly in the eye.”

Sam laughs. He spots Dean heading towards them across the asphalt and calls out, “Hey Shorty, ready to ride?”

Dean manages to get a whole handful of ice down the back of Sam's shirt before they get on the road again.

-

The thing in Tacoma is a walnut wardrobe, ancient and heavy and squirrel-chewed. It's been in the museum for decades, but it was made into part of the escape room, and one of the puzzles requires rooting around inside it for a fake ransom note in a real hidden compartment. All the disturbance to the wardrobe has riled up its spectral tag-alongs somehow. Sam, Dean, and Cas figure this out because they pose as visitors, rent the escape room for an hour-long game, and scour the joint with EMF.

“Oh hey, I found the other half of the key to that chest,” Sam says, standing on a chair to reach the top of the wardrobe, sifting through a jar of horseshoe nails that had been hidden there.

“You're supposed to be working, not playing the Saw game,” Dean complains.

“Give it to me, Sam, I'll see if it works.” Cas holds out his hand and Sam passes down the broken key. Cas fiddles the halves together and goes over to the chest.

“Unbelievable,” Dean mutters, picking apart the mechanism of the hidden compartment.

“What?” Sam grins. “We've got another half hour in here. We can totally crack it.”

Dean swears at them while he studies the haunted object and Sam and Cas conspire to figure out the rest of the clues. They do, in fact, crack the escape room with fifteen minutes to spare, and are met with happy applause from the employees outside. Dean hurriedly hides his EMF reader in his roomy jacket pocket and plasters on a smile to play along.

“And for such a fast time, you've won a complementary pass to our Plough to Plate event this weekend!” declares a chirpy girl dressed like Little House on the Prairie.

“Aw,” says Dean, sliding his arm around Cas' waist, “won't that be neat. _Darling.”_

“Uh,” says Cas. “I'm sure... dear?”

Sam laughs too loud and ushers them all out while the chirpy girl gives them a weird look. “Hah, yeah, gotta celebrate that engagement while it's fresh! Young love. Okay, bye.” Outside, he elbows Dean. “You're making it weird.”

Dean hisses, “It was your friggin' idea to use this cover.”

“Well, act engaged, not like sociopaths!”

The museum, as it turned out, is trying to build cred as a wedding venue. Sam had half-jokingly suggested that they could get access for interviews by posing as sisters scouting for the perfect historic-themed vacation wedding spot for “Deanna” and her new fiance.

“I hate this!” Dean whisper-shouts. “Three people today have told me I'll have cute babies! What the fuck kind of thing is that to say to a person?”

Cas reaches out to hold his hand reassuringly. “I have absolutely no intention of getting you pregnant, Dean,” he deadpans. Sam chokes on a laugh.

“Not funny!” Dean snaps, and pulls his hand away to stomp ahead.

Eventually, though, the cover gets the job done. In fact, it turns out to be the perfect choice. It doesn't take much questioning for the head curator to admit that the wardrobe was chosen specifically because it had a hidden compartment that worked well with the game, and that said compartment had originally held a packet of old letters that had been moved into storage while the wardrobe was in public use. The letters had been written between lovers – the two spectral figures who kept appearing, wandering the grounds, seemingly lost, looking for each other. Amongst the letters are locks of hair the two sent each other. Sam figures that by being removed from their resting place and put in polypropylene sleeves in a space-age archive room, the ghosts have basically gotten disoriented.

An after-hours B&E secures them the locks of hair, but as soon as Cas gets his hands on them, he blinks and says there are no real spirits attached – only death echoes. The lovers had died of disease, Cas says after a while of studying the locks, probably a virulent strain of flu, in each other's arms. Their death echoes are looking for each other.

“Explains why they haven't interacted with anyone,” Sam sighs. “All the injuries have happened because people got spooked and hurt themselves somehow.”

“Great,” says Dean, irritated at the waste of their time. “Burn the hair, that should get rid of the echoes?”

“I think it would have to be all of the letters,” Cas says slowly, skimming one of the pages. “They were truly in love. It's a shame to destroy these.”

After some debate, they leave the hair and letters alone. They go back to the curator the next day and after a few false starts, it is eventually Cas who makes a painfully awkward speech about how love should be honored even in death. The guise of a fresh-faced fiance cuts Cas' poor social skills a lot of slack; the curator buys it hook, line and sinker, and tearfully agrees to move the letters back into the compartment. Sam is pretty sure it's not just altruism – he later overhears the curator telling the PR director that they've had a fantastically marketable love story sitting under their noses all this time and they ought to see how they can turn it into more venue profit.

“Good enough, I guess,” Sam says as they walk away. Some kids are running around the grounds playing honest to God hoop-stick.

“The echoes will subside as long as their remains are in close proximity,” Cas concurs.

“Six day drive for _death echoes,”_ Dean grumbles. “That's a new low. I'm not even writing this one down.”

“I don't know,” says Sam. “It's kind of sweet. Maybe their souls have one of those shared mini-heavens.”

Dean snorts. “You need to get laid.”

-

Turns out, the bar scene in Tacoma is a jackpot.

Dean shoves Sam's shoulder, trying to knock him off his barstool. The place is all tall, tiny tables, blue lights, EDM, dancefloor, and rainbows. It had occurred to them after they'd already walked in that it's pride month, and the joint is hopping. “Hot blonde on your three,” Dean says, swigging his beer. It was his idea to hit a gay bar, to Sam's chagrin.

“Let me drink in peace, jerk,” Sam says, knocking Dean's hand away.

“Are you even trying?”

“I still feel weird about this, okay.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Sammy, what do you need, absolution from the Pope?”

“I just, uh.” Sam's attempt to argue is belied by the way he gets distracted by a tall redhead giving him bedroom eyes and a dimpled grin on her way out to the dancefloor. This has already happened three times. Apparently girl-shaped Sam hits a lot of womens' Large Lumberjack Wife buttons.

Dean actually shoves at Sam with both hands. “Do the puppy eyes,” he half-shouts over the music, “flop your hair, slouch a little, it'll work exactly the fucking same. Go!”

Sam loses his balance on the stool and staggers off, catching himself against the table. He glares at Dean, but the tip of his tongue flickers out to touch his lips. “Okay, fine. Fine! Just leave me alone.” He walks off, his plaid overshirt somehow hilariously appropriate. “Don't get wasted on anything with edible glitter in it!” he calls over his shoulder as he disappears into the crowd.

Dean laughs and waves him away, looking around to find where Cas went to. He was only supposed to go to the bar for another round. Dean leans back on his seat, peering, and is therefore startled by the scrape of Sam's abandoned stool being pulled close to the table again. Dean refocuses sharply. It's a guy, grinning, older than college-aged but dressed in a transparent effort to fit in with the youth. Sandy-brown hair, dark eyes, fair skin, a blonde beard trying to happen but not entirely succeeding.

“Hiya, gorgeous,” he says, leaning across the table, playing his whiter-than-white teeth for all they're worth. “Can I join you?”

“This isn't speed dating, bucko,” Dean says, swigging the end of his beer.

The guy's smile falters. “Just here with my roommate, you know, it's his birthday and he's into all this.” He holds out his hand. “Ryan.”

Dean looks at his hand coolly and picks at the label on his beer bottle instead. “Taken,” he says.

The change in Ryan's expression takes Dean aback. He doesn't look apologetic – he looks like Dean's given him a fun challenge. He lights up a little and his grin shifts into something shrewder, that makes Dean recoil.

“So, is that your middle name?” Ryan flirts.

“Buddy, I'm not interested,” Dean says flatly.

Ryan laughs. “Sorry, sorry! Can I buy you a drink anyway? As an apology.”

Dean opens his mouth to tell the guy exactly where he can shove a broken bottle, but is interrupted by a hand on his shoulder and Ryan's expression changing again.

“Hello,” says Cas, handing Dean a fresh, cold beer. His eyes are on Ryan.

Ryan raises his hands as if in defeat, laughing like someone told a joke. “All right, I'll get out of your hair,” he says lightly. “Can't blame a guy for trying!”

“Excuse you?” Dean says, rising from his bar stool and trying to take a step towards Ryan. Cas' hand on his shoulder holds him back. Before he knows it, Ryan has disappeared into the crowd with one last wink. “That -”

“Who was that?” Cas asks, totally oblivious.

“I will,” Dean tries, something thick and inexpressable rising in his throat, blocking clarity, “I will rip that guy's balls off and – and –“

Cas tenses and looks at the place where Ryan disappeared. “Is he a monster?” Cas asks.

“Yes!” Dean snaps. Cas immediately starts moving to chase the guy down, and Dean has the sense to catch his arm at the last second. “No! Shit, Cas, I mean – the human kind.”

Cas' brow furrows.

Dean grits his teeth. Something tells him that if Cas had still looked like a waifish ballerina, his sudden appearance wouldn't have done jack shit to deter that creep.

“Fuck this,” Dean says finally, and chugs his beer in a few long drags. He slams the bottle on the table. “Fuck this, I'm out.” He stalks away, and knows from the rustle of trench coat that Cas is behind him.

Dean has the presence of mind to shoot Sam a text to find his own ride back to the motel – if he's coming home at all – and slams the door of the Impala harder than he means to when he gets in. He flinches internally and rubs a thumb over the wheel in silent apology while Cas climbs in and Dean fires up the car.

“I don't understand what just happened,” Cas says after a moment. He looks over at Dean. “I can feel the anger coming off of you, but there's more than that. Disgust, I think.”

“Stop reading me,” Dean snaps.

“I can't help it,” Cas says. “I'm not trying to see, but it's there.”

Dean sucks in a deep breath through his nose and glares at a red light. He feels like running it, but he brakes. “That guy was hitting on me,” he says finally.

“Oh,” says Cas. He keeps looking at Dean and finally adds, “I still don't understand. You enjoy flirtation.”

“I told him to buzz off, Cas, I just wasn't feeling it,” Dean says, stomping the gas too hard when the light turns green. “He didn't listen. He was never gonna listen, because I look – and then you walked up, looking like _you,_ and –” Dean presses his lips together, fuming.

They drive the rest of the way back to the motel in silence. Dean doesn't slam the car door this time when he gets out, but he opens the motel door too aggressively, and slams it behind Cas. He shrugs out of his overshirt. For the first time, he wishes he'd been wearing that binder thing Sam got him. He'd tried it on once and the constriction had reminded him of hellhounds, the ribbons of his flesh, collapsed lungs, the hot poison air of hell, of a pine box with no oxygen in it. He'd ripped it off, gasping for air. He's been getting by with nothing, because these tits are small enough that he can get away with it.

If he'd been a man – no, he is, he is; but if Ryan had _thought_ he was a man –

Dean makes a strangled noise of frustration and stomps over to the sink, blasting the cold tap and sloshing some onto his face, trying to let it go. It doesn't matter, it's just some dick in a bar. This has never gotten to him before. Even as his normal self, he's gotten unwanted advances, and it's never gotten under his skin like this.

If he'd had a second more to think, to respond, he could have said something to that asswipe. If he'd had time! If Cas hadn't shown up when he did –

A hand touches his shoulder and Dean, unthinking, flings his elbow back to knock Cas' arm away. “Don't touch me,” he snaps, and shuts off the water.

He stands there in the silence for a moment, taking deep breaths. He hasn't covered the mirror in this room. Mirrors haven't bothered Dean in this last week, not like they did at first. He still doesn't look at himself in them, doesn't meet his own eyes, but he can at least stand to see his own slightly-wrong silhouette walking around. Now, he looks at only the lower half of the mirror and watches Cas' legs take a few steps back, hands loose at his sides, and finally turn away.

Dean lets out a breath, feeling his chest constrict as though the air is too thin here. “Cas,” he says, all the strength out of his voice. “I'm sorry.”

Cas is quiet for a minute. Dean finally turns around and leans against the counter, still looking at the floor, but he watches Cas' shoes turn around again to face him. “Don't be,” Cas says quietly. “I do understand the problem, academically. I am familiar with so many eras of human gender politics, they often blur together. You understand that I have a difficult time... feeling the problem, myself. It doesn't occur to me. I take no offense at being reminded.”

Dean's chest tightens again. “You didn't even do anything, man,” he says. “You know I'm not mad at you.”

“I know,” Cas says.

Dean finally dares to look up. Cas is gazing at him with a small, sad smile. “Oh, hell,” Dean mutters, “don't give me that look.”

Cas' brow furrows.

“That.” Dean flaps his hand. “Sweet, innocent little angel look.”

Cas snorts.

Dean closes his eyes, tips his head back, and makes himself shake the whole thing off. He lets the tension out of his shoulders, makes himself stop white-knuckling the countertop. He sighs. “Goddammit, I want to fuck you,” he mutters. “Or you to fuck me, I don't care.”

He looks down in time to see the flash of surprise – and dark interest – cross Cas' face before he schools his features back into stoicism and tilts his head. “Anything you want, Dean,” he says.

Dean's gut clenches. He pushes away from the sink and walks towards Cas, reaching out to take the lapels of the coat. He lets his hands just hang there, pulling the worn tan fabric down, and Cas watches him, unmoving.

“I think -” Dean starts, and licks his lips. “I don't know. But it's been _weeks_ and I just _want_ -” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise.

If he had known he was gonna get whammied in a way that would make him accidentally celibate for a month, he would've spent every available moment before said whammy in bed with Cas, getting his fill. But he hadn't known, of course, and it had been a dry spell for a while. Motel-less nights spent in the car keeping their hands to themselves, the constant dissuasion of Sam's immediate presence, and work work work, and just generally being too tired. A couple of rushed handjobs don't count. It's not like Dean can't function without sex, or like he's gone more than a month without before, but he's used to it always being an _option._

Not this... wanting it so bad, and having someone _right here_ who is not only willing but _loves_ him... and still feeling like it's out of reach. It's crazy, but he wishes Cas hadn't changed back so soon. He wishes he'd had time to work up the nerve to ask for something while Cas was still changed, too. Even though Cas doesn't _get_ it, there would have been a feeling of... solidarity, Dean supposes.

Okay, the long and short of it is, there's something unspeakably intimidating about the idea of “being the woman.” Which makes no goddamn sense, because Cas has had his dick up Dean's ass more times than Dean can count. But hey, Dean's always had that ass. It's familiar territory.

He raises his hands along Cas' lapels, tugging again. Cas bows his head slightly, closing the gap between his lips and Dean's. Dean finds tilting his head up to kiss disconcerting, but he makes himself forget about the angle and lets Cas lick into his mouth, bringing one hand around the back of Cas' neck and taking what he wants for an uncomplicated minute.

At length, Dean pulls back. “I want this,” he says, “but I just, I don't know, it might not work. But I _want_ it, goddamn it. So keep rolling with me unless I really shout fire, okay?”

Cas studies his face. “I believe this is the sort of circumstance for which the concept of the safeword exists.”

Dean groans and thumps his face into Cas' shoulder. “Fuck this,” he complains. “I literally want boring, vanilla, hetero missionary, and this is what it comes to.”

Cas' chest heaves under his cheek with a laugh. “Fire,” he says. “Say fire, and I'll understand.”

Dean sighs and nods, then pushes Cas' coat and jacket back off his shoulders and pulls him down by the tie to kiss again.

“And I'm certain you don't really want it to be boring,” Cas adds against Dean's lips.

Dean laughs and pushes him towards the bed.

Cas lets himself be manhandled, lying complacently on the bed while Dean does his best. He kisses back when Dean kisses him, he rocks against Dean's body, he holds onto Dean's arms and waist and even thighs, but he does nothing to provoke what Dean's come to think of as the Danger Zone. It's transparent, and it riles Dean to be treated like he's volatile and fragile; if he wanted Cas helpless and compliant, he'd goddamn make it so. So he pushes hard, practically ripping Cas' clothes off, bringing teeth into his kisses and demanding that Cas meet him in the middle.

It's sharp fingernails in the junction of Cas' thigh, too close to sensitive areas, that finally elicit the reaction Dean wants. Cas jerks away from him and hisses, breaking the kiss, turning his head when Dean chases after his retreat. For a moment, he doesn't give Dean what he wants, and Dean grins. “Yeah, c'mon, fight for it,” Dean mutters, ducking around to bite Cas' jaw instead.

“What?” Cas asks, breath finally coming heavily.

Dean moves down to Cas' collarbone. God he's missed Cas' body, _this_ body, the one he knows inside out. He runs his thumb along faint sigil scars while he licks and bites a nipple and Cas grabs his hair, pulling at the too-short strands. “Now isn't the moment for romance, Cas,” he says, reaching down and palming Cas' cock, making the other man let out a stuttering breath. _“Take_ from me.”

Cas arches back slightly while Dean jacks him to full hardness, struggling for words. “That – I'm not comfortable with that mindset, Dean,” he gasps, finally.

Dean sucks in a frustrated breath, sits back on Cas' legs, and yanks his t-shirt over his head.

It's the first time he's been bare-chested in front of Cas since the spell hit. He wants Cas to be distracted, to stop trying to talk shit out and just get on with it, but he should have known better. Somehow the fact that Cas doesn't even look at his tits, doesn't break eye contact for a moment, makes Dean feel altogether more naked.

“I mean,” Dean says, leaning down again, “touch me, and if I don't like it, I'll say so. Isn't that what we agreed?”

Cas does finally move his hands to Dean's lower back, pulling him closer. Dean finally realizes that he looks as nervous as he had their first time, afraid of doing anything that might drive Dean away, break the tenuous connection they'd finally admitted to and acted on. And Dean's falling back on old aggressions in the face of the same fears. Dean makes himself calm down, lowering his forehead to Cas' shoulder. “I'm not going anywhere, Cas,” he mutters. “If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I just need you to treat me like I'm still _me.”_

He can feel the tension drain out of Cas. Dean's put his finger on the pulse of the problem and suddenly Cas' hands are on him like they mean it, and he's suddenly _present_ in a way he wasn't before. “I'm sorry,” Cas says, hand coming to Dean's face to raise it, and Cas looks at him with molten understanding, says again, “I'm sorry, I didn't realize I -” and then he trails off, tongue flickering out to wet his lips, and he brings Dean's mouth to his in a crash of need.

It's different, this business of being soft. His body is still his own, of course, and that means he's still got the muscle and build of a gravedigger, hard arms and weathered skin. One chromosome can't change that. But Cas' hands on his chest feel strange, the soft give of breasts under callused fingers, and it feels even stranger when Dean presses flush against him, cushioned against Cas' chest, licking over his pulse point and grinding his hips down. The softness is between his legs, too, and rocking his crotch against Cas' hard length for the first time makes Dean's skin erupt in gooseflesh. His neck and arms crawl with a combination of ungodly pleasure and soul-deep disquiet. He does it again, and again, until Cas is gasping in partial Enochian, flushed and sweat-sheened despite his supposed control over his vessel.

Dean had forgotten he was still wearing underwear until Cas' hands slide under them to cup his ass. Dean doesn't think twice about wriggling free enough to shove the boxer briefs down and off, and it's only once he's sitting buck naked on Castiel's hips that he realizes the position he's really in. Without the barrier of fabric, the next time he rocks his hips down, Cas' dick aligns perfectly against the furrow of Dean's vulva, and Dean is already wet enough that the slide is fucking incredible.

“Fuck,” Dean whimpers, tilting so Cas' hardness rubs higher up, against his clit. “Fuck, fuckfuckgoddamn,” and Dean's skin is crawling all over, some gut-clenching deep-down part of him rejecting this outright, in mortal conflict with the part of him that is viciously hungry for more.

Cas shifts under him, and it pushes everything together just right and Dean cries out, shaking. “Fu-hu-huck, Cas, I can't,” he moans.

“Dean?” Cas' voice is so rough.

Dean makes himself stop, shifts his hips further back so Cas' dick is against his stomach instead, and plants his face in Cas' sternum. He groans against Cas' skin.

“Fire?” Cas asks.

_“No,”_ Dean practically yells, muffled against Cas' chest.

Cas heaves a breath. “Dean, that felt incredible.”

“It's the – the – it's –” Dean can't get the words out. Finally he blurts, “Could you get me pregnant? Like this?”

Cas' breath is steadying under him. His hardness is still rubbing Dean's stomach with every breath he takes, and Dean knows from experience how distracting that is. “Yes,” he says finally, “in theory. The blastocyst would abort as the spell failed, but it would complicate the spell's corrosion further. I wouldn't recommend it.”

“Okay, then we're not – I'm not getting this junk anywhere near your junk until – we don't have any condoms and even then I -” Dean shudders helplessly, a full-body convulsion of disgust and grief and anger at himself. He already kind of feels like he wants to get in the shower because now there's probably precome in the mix of slick downstairs and he knows the chances of sperm being in that are like, a trillion to one, but it's in his head now like suggesting the presence of bacteria to a germophobe.

Damn, he's never realized that jizz could feel _threatening._ It's only ever been three things to him: a joke, an inconvenient mess, or really fucking hot when Cas is swallowing it.

“Stop,” Cas is saying, hands on Dean's arms, “stop, it's all right, there's no need.” Cas shifts up under him, pulling himself into a sitting position, until Dean moves back off his legs entirely, crown of his head still pressed into Cas' stomach. Cas' dick is right there in his eyeline and Dean bites his bottom lip. “Dean,” Cas says gently, rubbing his hands along Dean's back and pressing his thumbs in firm circles against the stress-knotted muscles at the base of Dean's neck. “Anything,” Cas says.

“Yeah,” Dean says, taking deep breaths. God, he's still throbbing, and there's a hollow feeling that he usually associates with that moment after Cas pulls out, or when Cas has been fingering him open for a while. The feeling that says he ought to be filled up, that he's got an itch to scratch, that he wants it rough and deep, but that feeling is such a _lie_ right now because it's only his skin-deep body that wants those things – his paralyzed brain and pounding heart are screaming a big fat no to the whole concept of penetration.

Dean licks his lips. Surely there's a compromise somewhere. “Fingers only,” he says, finally sitting up and looking Cas in the eye before he can lose his nerve.

Cas nods. The hand working the kinks out of Dean's neck moves up to the back of his head, and Cas pulls Dean into a kiss full of reassurance. Dean sighs into it, and when Cas rolls him over, he doesn't fight it.

He's been resisting this, thinking that lying on his back under the big warm weight of a man in this particular body would bring out the worst possible feelings, but he'd been wrong. Cas' weight on him, over him, around him, is a huge relief. He immediately feels less like he's going to shake apart at the seams. He can get back into the rhythm of things, at the slower, more methodical pace that Cas sets, and the disquiet in his core is soothed along with the strokes of Castiel's fingers.

Said fingers move to the inside of his thigh, easing his legs apart – not by much, only enough for Cas' hand to fit. Cas caresses his thigh for a moment before moving his hand up, and -

Dean's breath stutters out. He takes Cas' cock in hand and strokes slowly, the focus on Cas' pleasure helping to keep him centered. Cas moves his face into the crook of Dean's neck, humming his approval, and slides his fingers through the wetness between Dean's legs, teasing apart folds and exploring. He stays mercifully clit-adjacent, not punishing Dean with the intensity of touching the spot directly. Dean's legs are shaking and he's just reminding himself to breathe when Cas slips two fingers inside.

He clenches hard, unable to stop it, and the feeling wrenches a sound like a dying cat out of him. Cas jerks up, hand immediately outside the danger zone, resting warm and slippery on Dean's stomach while he gives Dean an alarmed, questioning look.

Dean shakes his head, terrified of the stinging in his sinuses and thickness in his throat. “Put 'em back in,” he rasps.

“Dean,” Cas starts.

Dean grabs his hand and puts it back where it was. Uncertainly, Cas slips one finger inside, not so far, just a knuckle, and he's trying to meet Dean's eyes but Dean's counting cracks in the ceiling, taking deep breaths.

Cas pushes the finger in a little further and crooks it to find the g-spot, the way Dean showed him as many times as he could before the spell wore off Cas.

Dean's body floods cold; his limbs feel heavy and far away; he nearly bites through his bottom lip. “Fire,” he snaps, and Cas' offending hand is far, far away before the syllable is even finished, finding Dean's other hand and holding it tight.

The sting of impending tears makes Dean seethe with impotent rage. _“Why,”_ he spits. “Fucking witches, god, _why.”_

Cas holds his hand and says nothing, leaning down to kiss Dean's temple and hair. Dean doesn't remember when he let go of Cas' dick and he tries to reach for it, to get back to the task at hand, but Cas stops him, slides off to the side, tangles his fingers with Dean's and holds him still.

At some point, Cas reaches out to the bedside table for a tissue and wipes his hand clean, then wrangles the wrinkled, tossed blanket out from under their hips and pulls it over both of them. At some point, also, Dean turns onto his side, facing away from Cas, so that Cas can't see the wetness on his cheeks. And at some point after that, Cas' clean thumb softly caresses under Dean's right eye, wiping away a fresh track, even though Cas can't see his face. Dean lets out a harsh breath.

“I hate this,” Dean mumbles.

“It will end,” Cas murmurs to him, and the lights all abruptly go out. “Sleep, love.”

Cas doesn't call him that often, and Dean has mixed feelings about it when he does. Not mixed-leaning-bad, like all of this last hour has been, but mixed-leaning-terrified-that-it-might-be-good, like all the years of his courtship with Cas have been.

Dean forces a laugh in reply. “Did you zap the whole grid again?” he asks.

Cas breathes a chuckle against the back of his neck, and Dean appreciates the lightening of the moment. “No,” he says. “I didn't even pop the lightbulbs in Sam's room.”

“Aw,” Dean mumbles, closing his eyes and pressing into the warm body behind him. Cas has managed to lose the awkward boner that had been poking Dean in the back, and that makes him twinge again with shame. “Sorry,” he whispers, barely there.

Cas only responds with a tight embrace and lingering kiss to Dean's neck.

Eventually, Dean manages to sleep.

-

The next day, Dean puts on the binder Sam got him. He braces himself for bad associations, but they don't come this time – it's only uncomfortable in that he could stand some more give in the armpit area. After a minute of studying himself from the side, he gets dressed, daring a snug henley. The effect buoys his mood a bit. He rubs a hand over his chin, pointlessly wishing for his scruff back. While Cas is in the shower, he quietly practices pitching his voice down, trying to sound like himself again.

When Cas sits on the edge of the bed to tie his shoes, Dean clears his throat, turning his back to the mirror. “Three weeks is nothin',” he says, trying to sound flippant and confident.

Cas hums. “It may not be that long.”

Dean smirks at him. “You're gonna have a hell of a case of blue balls by the end of this, huh?”

But Cas gives him the sincerest of stares and says, “I'm not interested in coitus for coitus' sake, Dean, only in sharing experiences with you.”

Dean swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “Right.” He turns back to the mirror and tugs his henley to make it sit straighter on his shoulders.

Sam, it transpires, did not make it back to the motel last night. He texts a diner where he'll meet Cas and Dean for breakfast, giving no indication of how he plans to get there. When Dean pushes the plate glass door open and spots Sam at a booth in the back corner, looking disheveled and altogether too relaxed, Dean can't help giving him the biggest shit-eating grin.

“Well?” Dean demands, sliding into the seat across from his giant girl of a brother.

“Deep subject.” Sam looks smug.

“Fuck you,” Dean says good-naturedly, picking up a menu and looking for whatever meal offers the largest portion of fried.

Sam just shrugs and makes a face like 'maybe, maybe not.'

Dean drops the menu. “No,” he says.

“A lady doesn't fuck and tell,” Sam says, shrugging again. He eyes Dean up and down, noting the flattened chest, but even though his mouth quirks with a smile, he doesn't say anything.

Cas' elbow bumps Dean by accident, and Dean glances over to find him pressing fingers to his temple with a grimace. “Sam,” he says. “I need you to think more quietly.”

Sam instantly goes pink and picks up a menu to study it.

“I don't even know what that act is called,” Cas mutters, and sighs. “I'm sorry, I need to rebuild my barriers. Nothing for me.” He closes his eyes. The deeper he goes behind his grace buffer, the less able he is to experience flavor.

“Dude,” Dean says, impressed, “you out-me'd me.”

Sam clears his throat nervously.

By the time a waitress finally comes over to take their orders, they're safely onto the topic of where to roll next. Dean's vote is Vegas; Sam wants a breather, maybe to go see some of the national parks in Oregon. They're distracted from heated debate when the waitress asks what they want. Sam orders his low-carb, veggie-stuffed omelette like the tool he is, and then the bored woman turns to Dean and says, “And you, son?”

The three letters wash over him like stepping into a blissful shower of normalcy and belonging. Dean manages to order a short stack and bacon with a straight face, but in truth, he's never loved a tired-looking fifty-something diner waitress more than in this moment. He silently vows to leave the biggest tip of his life.

Neither Sam nor Cas say anything about it, for which Dean is grateful. But after a while, Cas' hand finds his under the table, wraps their fingers together, and squeezes.

Just like that, three weeks really doesn't feel so long anymore.

-

They Google up a women's shelter in Seattle and swing through the city long enough to drop off the small stack of clothes Castiel had barely gotten a chance to wear. Dean tucks the never-worn bra from Lane Bryant into the pile when the other two aren't looking. The next motel they hit, he gets the clippers out of the trunk and gives himself a haircut on a setting shorter than his usual, leaving enough length for it to be shy of military, but not by much. He's just buzzing the back of his neck to clean up the fade, working without a visual aid from a lifetime of muscle memory, when Sam and Cas return from a food run.

Sam laughs at him. “Good,” he says, “very butch,” and Dean throws a fry at him.

Cas runs his hand over the peach-fuzzy back of Dean's head, ostensibly to knock loose some stray clippings, and smiles at him.

They decide to do the tourist jag in the redwood forests. This involves going over the Cascades.

Dean does not like driving Baby on mountain roads. Sam knows this, but he argues Dean down that the height of summer is the best time to take this trip because most of the typical dangers are at their lowest probability. Even the highest passes are clear of snow and visibility is supposed to be top-notch for the rest of the week. Still, Dean refuses to let anyone else take a turn driving after their altitude hits four thousand feet above sea level, and he takes every hairpin turn with hyper-focused care.

“You're not checking out the view,” Sam says, gazing out the open window, hair whipping back from his face.

Dean grunts, eyes glued to the road.

An unopened bag of Doritos they'd bought six hours and a vertical mile ago spends the whole day's drive slowly inflating until it looks like a freshly blown balloon. Around dinnertime, it pops.

When Dean stops to top up the tank, Sam takes the opportunity to buy gum. He comes back chewing and wincing, shaking his head.

“Ears?” Dean calls.

Sam nods, holding his nose and puffing his cheeks. “Ugh,” he says, letting go. “Better.”

“Just remember, this was your idea,” Dean says.

The rest of the week is... really good, actually. With his buzzed hair and the binder and the deliberate deepening of his voice, which neither Sam nor Cas comment on, Dean can relax into just being himself, more or less. His presentation seems to work everywhere; strangers never bat an eye when he walks into a men's room, though he always has to take a stall. He sleeps clothed and takes showers at record speeds. During the day the binder chafes under his arms something fierce, and after a few days his back begins to ache like nobody's business, but all of these discomforts are okay because they're familiar on a base physical level. He says nothing, pops too many extra strength Tylenol and grins through it.

Cas occupies the bed with him every night, sometimes watching the muted TV with captions, sometimes sitting up to read, but he doesn't sleep or trance out or even make a pretense of relaxing. He'll rest a hand on Dean's arm or side or back and the warm spot will seem to radiate a sense of grounded belonging that keeps Dean's sleep deep and dreamless.

Dean is sure he's using his power to dull the effects of the spell. Every morning, Dean wakes refreshed and Cas looks beat. Not rough, not hurt – just exhausted. Every morning, Cas smiles at Dean and kisses him softly and does not ask if he slept well. Dean thinks he should tell Cas to stop, because what if something comes up and they need their angel alert and charged? But he can't bring himself to. They seem so safe right now, everything seems so quiet, and the sleep is so good. Being away from consciousness, fully removed from having to exist in this body, is such a relief.

Neither of them has taken off anything more than their shoes in each other's presence since the night in Tacoma. Dean smiles every day, kisses Cas back in the morning, and firmly ignores every square inch of his body from the neck down.

-

Six days later they're making decent time to Mount Lassen National Park and have just finished lunch in a tiny mountain skiing town that is nearly dead due to the season. Sam slides in behind the wheel to take the afternoon's driving shift – a grudging concession from Dean that was largely influenced by his lunch-induced need for a nap (the little Bavarian cafe had had German chocolate pie to die for, so it wasn't Dean's fault really, the pie made him do it). Sam has just pulled out of the parking lot when his phone rings.

Sam pulls the phone out of his pocket, hits accept on the call without thinking, then looks at the screen, does a rapid double-take, and hot-potatoes the phone across the seat to Dean.

Dean nearly fumbles it, but he gets it turned around to see that it's Bobby. He sighs. This was bound to happen.

Dean clears his throat, puts the phone to his ear and says “What's up?”

“Yeah, Sam, what do you know about – wait, Dean?”

“Yeah, it's me.”

“Where's Sam?”

“Driving,” Dean says, glancing over.

There's a pause. “Okay?” Bobby says, bewildered. “Put him on, I called him, not you.”

“Bobby, I'm hurt!” Dean says, hamming it up while he gets Sam's attention and points to the phone. Sam shakes his head. With practice, Dean has gotten to where he can pitch his voice down and sound nearly normal, but Sam's had no such luck. His voice is too markedly changed to disguise.

“Whatever,” Bobby grouses. “Hand over the phone.”

“He's driving,” Dean repeats.

“When the hell's that ever stopped either of you takin' calls?”

“Oh come on, road safety,” Dean says, grinning broadly so that the extra cheer carries through into his tone. “Buckle up, it's the law!”

“This is one of your prank wars, innit,” Bobby sighs. “Goddammit, Dean, give your brother his phone back.”

“No can do, padre,” says Dean, pulling an angry face at Sam and shaking the phone briefly in his brother's face. Sam mimes zipping his lips.

“Well, unless you can hold an intelligent conversation about Nubian pharaoh lineages, I don't give a rat's ass -”

“Uh, I got Cas here, though!” Dean interrupts, twisting to look in the backseat. Castiel, who was watching him with mild amusement, raises an eyebrow. “Cas, nudie pharaohs, ring a bell?”

“Nubian!” Bobby's holler carries through the speakers loud enough that they can all hear it, and Sam holds in a laugh, covering his mouth.

Cas smiles and takes the phone from Dean. “Hello, Bobby,” he says. “Yes, I was stationed in Meroë for some time. I knew Senkamanisken and Queen Nasalsa. I blessed their eldest son personally. What do you wish to know?”

Dean fiddles with the radio, hunting for something other than mountaintop static, but he leaves the volume low so he can listen to the pleasant lull of Castiel's voice reminescing about the good old days in the cradle of civilization. He doesn't understand half the words coming out of Cas' mouth, and even fewer once Cas starts reciting poetry or some shit in deader-than-doornails Mesopotamian languages, but the pleasure Cas gets from sharing his memories and feeling helpful is clear in his tone. Dean's lips twitch up in a smile, until he notices Sam smirking at him, at which point he gives Sam a wet willy.

While Sam is whisper-yelling at Dean to quit it and trying to slap Dean's hands away without running them off the road, a shift in Cas' tone catches Dean's attention.

“-can't, um, at the moment. Yes, because he's – driving. Yes... pranks. Nothing's wrong – no, I swear.” Cas' brow crinkles. “Why a stack of them? I wouldn't place much faith in a single Bible. The authors took great liberties with the dictation.” His face falls, and he glances up to meet Dean's eyes. “Does he? No, I don't think he sounds strange. He, um – he had a cold. Yes. Yes, he whined about it. It's nearly gone. He'll be fine in a day or two.” Something Bobby says makes Cas grin, and he says, “Well, I prefer not to resolve every minor complaint with the infinite celestial power of the almighty. It does him good to sneeze sometimes.” Cas pauses for a while, listening. “No, we're in -” He squints out the window at passing signs. “Shasta Lake. A small city abutting the southern slopes of a stratovolcano in – oh – yes, that's correct, the mountain in California. We were, but there was a job in Oregon. No, no deaths. Um. Echoes. Yes, that kind.” Cas grimaces at Dean, looking apologetic. “I know it wasn't... there wasn't anything else in the news. We're taking time to see the mountains. They're lovely, Rasiel's work is exquisite. Rasiel? – um, yes, she made most of the mountains – well, she didn't make them stone by stone, but she engineered the system of tectonic – oh, uh, yes, I suppose I can... put him back on...”

Castiel holds the phone out to Dean, looking harried. Dean has great sympathy. Bobby with an itch to scratch is not a Bobby you want questioning you.

“Stop sweating my angel,” Dean says.

“Well, I was hoping y'all were still in the south – got an errand that needs run in Georgia. But I'll see if Oscar's around there.”

“What's the errand?”

“Estate sale. Crotchety old drunk dies of liver failure in his own personal episode of Hoarders, occult-flavored.”

“Hey, sounds familiar.”

Bobby snorts. “Except he wasn't a hunter or a hunters' resource, just a coot with money and a thing for grimoires. I was hoping to get eyes on the goods, see if any of it's the real deal or if it's all just new age garbage. Like I said, I'll nab Oscar for the job. Hated to waste your talents on a milk run like that, anyway, but apparently you're too busy chasing death echoes in friggin' Hipsterland.”

Dean groans. “Hey, the leads looked ghostlike. Not our fault the spirits were even less tangible than usual.”

“Well, tell Cas thanks for the walk down two thousand-year-old memory lane. And give Sam his damn phone back sometime this week.”

“Will do,” Dean says, and hangs up. He lets out a harsh breath. “Well, that wasn't suspicious at all.”

“I didn't know what to do!” says Sam.

“Well, you're right, he wouldn't've believed it was you anyway,” Dean sighs. Then he surreptitiously licks his left pinky finger and sneaks it towards Sam's ear again.

He doesn't get around to that nap for quite a while.

-

The following afternoon finds them in a field on the lower slopes of Mount Lassen.

Mount Shasta was beautiful in the stark, jagged way of high peaks: barren stone and rivers of ice, clear mirror lakes full of sky, the earth trying to reach up and touch the face of God, etcetera, etcetera. Dean already prefers Lassen and he's only been here a few hours. The mountain itself is lower and rounder, nearly a vertical mile shy of Shasta, and much of that lack is because it's a shattered thing. Its last eruption in 1915 left it decapitated, exploded, as though an angry angel snapped their fingers to unmake it. Its shape has been softened with time and greenery. Its guts are strewn in the slopes and fields around it, in the form of boulders ranging in size from football to car to barn. Lone trees fight for their patches of arable soil in the stony ground, and each one that gets traction leaves a little more of the stone broken down into soil for the next generation of seedlings to fight over.

Even though it's high summer, the temperature is a bearable 85, as opposed to Tennessee's triple digits. Dean forebore the indignity of letting Sam slap sunscreen on him before they got out of the car for a short hike. It's not exactly Dean's idea of a great time, wandering in the wilderness miles from the nearest source of processed food or functional plumbing, but he'd succumbed to the double-teaming of puppy eyes. The cell signal is surprisingly robust even out here, so he doesn't feel too apprehensive.

Sam is half a mile away in the tall grasses, letting his rangy legs take him wherever the winds blow him. It's a clear day, so Dean can just spot his shape moving around on a ridge, full on Sound of Music frolicking over the hills. Not really. Probably just looking for interesting rocks. Isn't going to stop Dean from calling him Maria for the rest of the day.

Cas is beside Dean, and they are following a clear glacial stream glittering in the sun. The grasses around their ankles are full of orange splashes of poppies, snowdrifts of white alyssum, clumps of wild sage that scent their footprints as they crush it. Manzanita shrubs sprawl nearby, trunks peeling in long curls to show new bark as red as blood. It's more beautiful here than Dean is comfortable admitting. He and Sam will stop on scenic overlooks to admire the scenery and share a beer, sure, but it's done in comfortable silence and with the waiting escape of the car against their backs. Here, they've hiked the trail a couple miles away from the gravel lot where Baby is parked, and Dean can't see a single thing that he can pinpoint as having been touched by humanity. Probably there's some trash in the weeds – maybe he'll step on a Coke can somewhere down the line and it'll bring him back to reality – but he can't spot it from here.

His hand is in Castiel's and the heat in his face is from the sun, definitely just the sun. He swallows, throat dry, and lifts his bottle of water to his lips for a drink. The cap is in his pocket so he doesn't have to let go of Cas' fingers. Half an hour ago, when they'd reached the stream, he'd complained he was getting thirsty and eyed the water. It looked inviting, clear as glass, and dipping his hand into the flow had left his fingers aching with cold. But Cas had smiled fondly at him, told him the water was full of giardia, and handed him a lukewarm bottle from the cooler in the backseat of the car, which hasn't had fresh ice in two days. Dean grumbles and drinks the bottled stuff, but he squats every now and then to let the water numb his hands and then he presses them to the back of his neck, where the sun is blatantly ignoring his SPF 50, and sighs.

Hiking isn't so bad.

But it's past noon now and he's getting hungry and burnt and he's just about reached his limit. Cas squeezes his fingers as though reading his mind, nods at an enormous boulder a couple dozen yards away, and they walk over to lean in its shadow. Because of the lack of humidity here, the temperature in the shade drops preciptously. Dean puffs out a long breath and finds a smaller, broken piece of rock to sit on. Cas hesitates, then lowers himself to the ground by Dean's knee and folds his legs up into lotus position. Dean snorts, earning himself a glare.

Cas is rocking the full hippie vibe at the moment, in a loose linen shirt with a mandarin collar and worn jeans. He concedes to changing his clothes now and again, the same way he concedes to eating and sleeping – not because he needs to but because he wants to. He has tentatively begun to embrace the variety of uses clothing can serve. He doesn't need it for protection, clearly, not the way Dean's heavy canvas and leather jackets are practical against both weather and blades, not the way Dean's jeans are designed to hold up under wear and tear or Dean's boots for withstanding grave mud and battle. But Cas has begun to appreciate that the fabric he wraps his body in communicates different things to the people who look at him. That a suit and trenchcoat are sometimes innappropriate in certain settings, like a biker bar, or a sewer, or in the middle of scalding summer heat when people give him strange looks for his layers. He has learned how to use clothes to make him invisible in the human way, by deflecting interest.

He's also learned how to attract interest, and how to use clothing for self-expression. So the loose, open, buttonless notch in the collar of his shirt? The way the airy fabric clings against the shape of his body in the light breeze? Dean can't pretend Cas doesn't know how he looks in it. Cas _definitely_ knows how he looks in it.

“Cas?”

“Hm?”

“I kinda wanna blow you.”

Dean says it idly, without moving to act on it, and Cas reacts with little more than a quirked brow. After a moment, Cas tilts his head. “I can't think of any particular objections,” he says, lips quirking with wry humor.

Dean matches him with a dry laugh.

Cas hums, closes his eyes, and leans back against Dean's knee. He murmurs, “Your timeliness in jumping to the task suggests there may be more to unpack from your statement.”

Dean sighs, raking his fingers through Cas' hair, eliciting a pleased sound. “It's nice out here,” he says. “I miss touching you. That's all.”

“You're touching me now,” Cas says, leaning his head further into Dean's idle stroking. “And your opinion of the environs seems to be a non-sequiter.”

“Ugh.” Dean tries to think it through, make the connections clearer. “I mean that – the only kinda sex I've ever had outside was, uh, truck stops and alleys. It's nice here, and you're nice, you naked is nice, it could all be... nice, together.”

“Nice,” Cas echos.

_“Really_ nice,” Dean says, generously.

Cas laughs, and that rough gravel manna from heaven goes right down Dean's spine to pool warm in his gut and tickle along his limbs.

“Switch with me,” Dean says, sliding his butt off the rock and into the dusty grass. Cas moves with far more grace to sit on the little boulder, unbuttoning his jeans as he goes.

Dean does a quick double check of the horizon all around to be sure there's no chance they're being watched before he tugs Cas' jeans open. Cas is still soft but the first touch of open mountain air and Dean's warm breath make him start to stir. Dean shuffles to sit cross-legged between Cas's knees and sets to his task; Cas slides cool fingers against the back of Dean's neck, down the top of his shirt to his shoulderblades, breath shuddering as Dean coaxes him to fullness.

And it is nice. Nicer than Dean was anticipating, really. The wild, nature-scented breeze ruffling his shirt, Cas clutching at his shoulders and scratching short nails through his buzz cut, familiar salty-soft skin sliding over his tongue, breathing in deep musky breaths through his nose so he never has to pull away. All of it is tingling through his skin, a lightness he's been lacking for these past couple of weeks, an uncomplicated simplicity of sensation that is such a relief from the chaotic relationship he often has with his own body. Even before this stupid spell, he's struggled with feeling fully at home inside his own skin for a lot of his life.

The quality of Castiel's breathing changes and Dean's reminded of his immediate circumstances. He tilts his head, not changing pace, and looks sidelong upwards to see Cas tipping his head back, eyes closed, lost in it. Dean smirks, rubs his tongue roughly over the head, sucks and swallows hard. Cas startles, losing his control over a soft moan. Dean can tell he's trying to be quiet, because there's no telling how far sound carries out here.

“Dean,” Cas whispers, sliding both his hands up to Dean's head, rubbing thumbs against his temples. Cas sighs, closes his eyes for a moment, then says, “You can't fathom how badly I wish you were inside me right now.”

Arousal jolts through Dean's system so hard and fast he sucks in a harsh breath and has to pull back from blowing Cas for a moment. Heat is pooling rough and wild in his belly, muscles in his thighs ticking with that fight-flight-or-fuck adrenaline that he can't resist. He can feel that he's getting wet, but it bothers him less at this moment than it has in the past. He slides one of his hands between his legs to press the heel of his hand into his crotch and the pressure is delicious without being upsetting. A small whimper escapes him without his permission.

Cas hasn't failed to notice any of this. He takes a deep breath and murmurs, “I'd turn over here, let you get me ready with your tongue. I'd take you like that, I'd be fine with only saliva and how badly I want you. That would be enough. I'd want you to pull my hair back when you push in. Make my throat tighten so I wouldn't be loud. Hold your hand over my mouth.”

Dean is pretty steadily whimpering by now. He twists his legs under himself, gets up onto his knees. He takes Cas' cock back into his mouth, one hand on Cas, the other digging into his own crotch, pushing the denim against a conspicuous absence. He isn't stupid – he knows what Cas is doing, and that what Cas is describing would be the other way around nine times out of ten. But with Cas' quiet, deep murmurs ringing in his ears, he can all but feel his own phantom erection, hot and heavy between his legs.

“I'll be so tight, Dean,” Cas sighs, and tips his head back again, breath becoming stilted as Dean brings him closer to the edge. “It's been nine weeks and four days since you last penetrated me, did you realize? Not that I don't luxuriate in every time you let me take you apart from inside, but I hope you know -” Dean sucks particularly hard and Cas gasps, interrupting himself. “I, ah,” Cas says breathily, “hope you know that as soon as the spell wears off, I want you to, _oh._ Uhmm. I want you to fuck me – so hard – I forget – my species -”

Dean's wrist hurts, his hand is shaking with how tense he's holding it, but no power in the world could stop how hard he's riding the hard knot of his own curled fingers. The seam on the inside of his jeans is digging into good, _good_ places. Realistically, he's causing himself as much pain as pleasure, and it's not like Dean's ignorant of how this particular plumbing works – he knows that what he's doing is inefficient at best, destructive at worst. But he can't change it up now that he's committed, and by god is he committed. The physical sensations might be just this side of frustrating, but the mental images and intense desire have him tripping along the bright, sharp edge of what he so desperately craves.

“Dean,” Cas says, voice cracking. “I want you to – to come inside me, please, I need you – _ah -”_

Cas's length thickens and twitches against Dean's tongue and he thinks about pumping his release into Cas's slick, tight heat and then salt touches his tongue and that's _it,_ he's screaming muffled around Cas's cock with barely the presence of mind to keep from biting. His groin and hips flood with fire, spilling up his spine and down his legs, leaving him panting and so oversensitive that the very touch of the breeze is suddenly too much. He pulls off of Cas with a cough, swallowing some of what's in his mouth but losing a lot of it down his chin, and collapses to the side on shaking legs. He's sore in ways he didn't know he could get sore, tight and lax at the same time all over his body, and it feels _amazing._

He gulps breaths, scrubs a hand over his sticky chin and wipes it off in the grass. “Holy shit,” he manages, finally. He gathers enough of his wits to look up and see that Cas is also leaning back on the rock, breathing hard. While he watches, Cas finally sits up and manages to tuck himself away and get his pants closed before he slides off the side of the rock to sit on the grass next to Dean.

“Was that all right?” Cas asks, giving Dean a wide-eyed, earnest look.

Dean rearranges himself to be flopped next to Cas, both of them leaning against the rock, and he pulls Cas's head down and kisses him as thoroughly as humanly possible.

He isn't sure how long he spends thanking Cas for the small miracle he just wrought, but by the time Dean pulls away his lips are as sore as his wrist. Dean finally leans his forehead against Cas' shoulder and allows his breathing to even out. “Holy shit,” Dean breathes again, too blissed out to manage better words.

“It was all right?” Cas repeats again, quieter.

Dean rolls his eyes, although Cas can't see. “Fishing for compliments? Yeah, man, that was a little more than _all right.”_

“No, I meant...” Cas sighs. “You know what I meant.”

Dean breathes in deep, nose by Cas' shoulder – clean sweat, laundry soap, sun-hot skin, all of it wrapped in a faint miasma of artificial coconut from Dean's sunscreen. He does know what Cas meant. He's deciding whether or not he wants to address it.

Finally, he says, “It's more okay if it's me, I think. Touching myself bothers me less than... I mean, I ain't gonna try stripping down and rubbing one out, but, you know. Under wraps, it all just kinda worked itself out.”

He can feel Cas nod against his head. “I'm glad it all... came together.”

Dean bursts out laughing. After a moment, Cas follows him into the easy shared hysteria of good sex and bad puns.

After a few minutes of lazy afterglow and idle conversation, Dean's stomach interrupts him with a grumble. He huffs and says, “Where the hell is Sasquatch, anyway?”

Cas shakes his head in uncertainty, gazing at the rocky horizon.

Dean digs out his phone and checks that the signal is still strong before dialing his wandering brother. It rings twice, three, four...

Cas' brow furrows with sudden concentration. Dean starts to ask what's up, but Cas brushes his fingers over Dean's lips and Dean takes the hint to shut up. On the eighth ring, Cas rises to his feet and holds out a hand to help Dean up. Cas points uphill, south-southeast. Dean follows after him.

The call finally goes to voicemail, and Dean hangs up. Cas walks another dozen yards or so, then says, “Call again.”

Dean does so, but he also loosens his silver knife from its hidden sheath at his hip.

A little further on, Dean begins to hear the faint sound of the ringer, too. They pick up the pace, scrambling up through tussocky grass and tripping over hidden rocks. Cresting a small rise, Dean finally spots a figure sprawled out by a creek in the near distance.

“Sam? Sam!”

Dean reaches him first, falls to his knees and instinctively triages for injuries, starting with the head. No blood, no big lumpy bruises. Sam's breathing is steady, heart rate normal. Cas finally catches up and reaches down to touch Dean's shoulder. “Unconscious,” Cas says, kneeling. He lays a palm over Sam's forehead. “Oh.” His brow scrunches.

“What?” Dean demands.

“I'll wake him.” Cas changes his touch to two fingers and Sam immediately stirs, blinking and squinting against the direct overhead sun.

Dean lets out a rough breath and rocks back on his heels, burying his brief panic under the usual layer of aggravation. “Wake up, princess,” he tells Sam, with a couple light cheek slaps for good measure.

Sam swats his hand away like an annoying fly and sits up with a grunt, rubbing his eyes. “Jesus,” he mumbles. “How long was I out?”

“No idea,” Dean says.

“No more than five minutes, I think,” Cas says calmly. “You remember?”

Sam nods, swallowing hard.

“Remember what?” Dean demands.

“Passed out from the pain,” Sam rasps. “I felt kind of bad all of a sudden so I sat down for a second and then, just. Wham.” He shakes his head. “I've got a pretty high threshold, but it was so sudden.”

“Didn't hear you yell or anything,” Dean says.

“I kinda – seized all over. Froze up. Didn't have a chance.”

Dean curses under his breath and pushes up to his feet. “Spell?” he asks, brusque, looking at Cas for confirmation.

Cas nods. “It's beginning to fail. We should expect two, maybe three days of fluctuating instability before it sloughs completely.”

Sam blanches.

“All right, back to the car,” Dean says, reaching down to take Sam's hand and pull him up. “No more pretty nature time. We'll hole up somewhere, wait this out.”

“I feel fine now,” Sam objects.

Cas puts a hand on his shoulder. “You won't soon,” he says. “When you begin to feel unwell again, let me know.”

Sam swallows, swipes the sheen of sweat off his face, and nods.

They get back to the parking lot without incident. Sam's accidental naptime under the full blast of the sun, combined with pain-sweat washing away his sunscreen, means that he's pink as a blushing schoolgirl (and being a whiny turd about it, to boot). Dean manages to find some old, expired aloe gel in the trunk and passes it over.

“You've got something on your mouth,” Sam says, squinting at him.

Dean slaps his hand over his mouth and scrubs the corners of his lips, licking his thumb to spit-shine away whatever flaky evidence is left. “Uh,” he says.

Sam's eyebrow twitches. Realization flickers. “Oh, _gross,_ Dean.” He squirts aloe into his hand and smears it on his burnt face, muttering. Dean catches “fucking exhibitionist” somewhere in the subvocal tirade.

“Why am I always gross? You never call Cas gross,” Dean complains, sliding into the driver's seat and tilting down the rearview mirror to check his face. He could be looking for an offending smudge of mustard for all he cares. At this point, Sam's beyond scarring.

Just outside the passenger door, Sam makes a startled noise. Dean glances over. He only has a moment to see Sam's face before he claps his hands over it, groaning, knees buckling. Cas has been sticking close to him and catches him around the shoulders at once, holding him up. In that half-second glimpse, Dean had seen the problem – just like he'd felt it when the spell had failed on Cas, but in even slower motion.

“Dude, don't go all opening the Ark of the Covenant on me,” Dean tries to joke, swallowing back his bile. If he never sees Sam going all melty again in his life, it'll be too soon.

Cas cups a broad hand around the side of Sam's head, and even at a distance Dean can feel the weird shiver that passes through reality when Cas hauls out the major mojo. Sam makes a teakettle noise and staggers, and Cas sags, suddenly held up in Sam's arms instead of the other way around. Dean leaps back out of the car and is around the hood, helping Sam hold Cas up, before he can fully process what's happened.

“What was -” Dean starts, but stops when he sees Cas's clammy pallor and bloodshot eyes. Cas's breathing is erratic and he grips at Dean's sleeve.

“Made it stop,” Cas croaks. “Witch's magic... thornier than anticipated.”

“Stupid,” Dean grunts, and he and Sam haul Cas between them to the open passenger door. An unspoken car rule has always been that the person in the most pain deserves the extra leg room.

“You didn't have to do that,” Sam says. He looks shaken but normal again. Well, the spell-altered version of normal.

Cas shrugs awkwardly against the seat, eyes already drifting closed. “Get to a room, settle in. I'll be more careful next time.”

-

So, they drive. An hour or so south of the park, Cas wakes up and feels well enough (and power-sapped enough) to request a cheeseburger run, so Dean treats them all to an obscene amount of In-N-Out Burger.

They settle on Chico as a good enough town to hunker down in for a few days, and by the time Dean finds them a cheap, clean motel to call home, night's already falling. When Sam leaves the room to get ice, Dean snatches the opportunity to corner Cas alone.

“Hey,” he demands, gathering handfuls of Cas's coat lapels when they brush close to each other in the small space. “I get that you want to help, but don't wipe yourself out, okay?”

Cas leans into him and rests his forehead briefly against Dean's. “I won't intervene so abruptly again. I suppose the closest analogy is that I, uh... sprained my grace.” Dean can't help laughing, and a small smile plays over Cas's lips before fading. He brushes fingers down Dean's cheek. “I'll ease what I can, but Sam will still be ill and in pain. I'll stay with him, but you may want to get another room for yourself.”

“Nah,” Dean says, “I've been around that kid with the flu before. Nothing I haven't seen.”

Cas starts to say something again, then stops himself. “All right,” he says. He raises his hand to Dean's forehead and frowns for a moment. Dean feels the cool tickle of Cas's grace-tricorder checking him out. “The magic is fraying on you as well,” Cas says. “I hope it doesn't overlap with Sam. I can't help you both at once.”

Dean reaches behind himself to knock twice on the cheap wooden dresser. “Come on, man, you know better than to announce the worst case scenario out loud,” he grumbles. “Jinx.”

Cas flashes a smile at him before leaning forward enough to press a gentle kiss to his lips. Normally Dean would try to push for more intense macking, but the soft moment feels _right_ deep down, and he for the briefest of seconds he allows himself to chick-flick internally.

Then the door bangs open and Sam strides in, ice in one hand, other hand to his forehead, eyes closed, and loudly announces, “I have the most godawful headache and if you guys are fucking I _will_ dump this ice on you.”

-

The week that follows is almost worth risking memory magic to erase.

When Sam was thirteen, he'd had the worst flu of his life. He was old enough to be humiliated by how helpless he was, and Dean was old enough to be humiliated for both their sakes. Thirteen was too old for the comfort of bedtime stories, too prickly an age for hugs or noogies to be welcome. Thirteen was when Sam was just beginning to fully understand the danger perpetually hovering at the edges of their lives, and to resent their father for wallowing in it. And seventeen was not an age Dean cares to remember being – nothing but chaos in his mind and body, rage and resentment and raw, newly needy sexuality. Too knowledgable and experienced in hunting for Dad to keep calling him a student, but too young for Dad to let him off the leash.

They'd been in upper New York, rural backwoods, and it had been winter. Miserable, bone-aching cold. Dean thinks Dad had been hunting a wendigo, maybe. Hard to remember anymore. All he knows for sure is that Dad had taken the camping gear, including their first aid kit and a lot of their emergency supplies, and had left Dean and Sam undersupplied in a motel half a mile from the nearest convenience store. It's not like he could have known Sam would get sick, but still.

How Sam got the flu, Dean doesn't know. It was during the school year's winter break, so he didn't get it from some other snot-nosed kid. Hell, maybe there were germs on the Dr. Pepper button of the vending machine at the motel. Kid drank soda like it was going out of style back then, before he got hippie-healthy. For whatever reason, Dean managed to dodge the bullet, while one fateful evening Sam went from 'just the sniffles' to vomiting himself inside out within the span of four hours.

That week in New York, Dean thought he'd seen the worst. And maybe he did see the worst that the regular flu had to offer. He never could have forseen _magic_ flu.

Dean sleeps during the brief stretches when Sam is able to sleep, and the rest of the time he does what he can. Brings cold washcloths to lay over Sam's grotesquely bubbling face, goes to the store for broth and sports drinks that Sam can sip on before he inevitably tosses them. Light hurts Sam's eyes, so Dean keeps the room dark and loses track of time. Much of the time, Sam just lies in bed, shivering and biting back low groans of pain.

Castiel sits on one side of the head of Sam's bed, legs crossed, eyes closed, leaning against the headboard. Anytime Sam is in bed, Cas rests a hand on Sam's forehead or shoulder or neck, and there's a visible transfer of tension from Sam to Cas. Sam is only able to sleep like this, with Cas's palm on his skin, siphoning the pain away. By the same token, when Sam has to stagger away to the bathroom, Cas slumps and looks all but ruined with exhaustion. His mojo is not as powerful as it once was. Dean brings him food, too, since he tends to crave it when he runs his battery low. He'll indulge a burger run every now and then if it eases the drawn expression of pained perseverance on Cas's face.

Late on the second day, when Dean hands Cas a chocolate bar, Cas reaches up with his free hand and cups Dean's face. Sam is asleep, breathing too shallow, faint sounds caught in the back of his throat on every other exhale, Cas's fingers in his hair. Cas says, “It's almost done. There are only a few knots left in the spellwork. By morning, I hope.”

Dean lets out a relieved breath. He puts his hand over Cas's, leans forward to kiss Cas's hair. “Thanks,” he says. Cas's fingertips against his temple are cool, and he feels the tingle before he can tell Cas to stop.

“Dean,” Cas says, and Dean pulls back to see him frowning. “You're in pain.”

“Headache,” Dean says, moving away, out of reach. “I'm fine. Focus on Sam.”

“It's failing on you, too,” Cas murmurs. “I can -”

“You can't,” Dean says firmly. “Sam. Focus. I can put up with whatever until Sasquatch is done bubbling at the edges.”

“Tonight will be -”

“Just don't think about it,” Dean says, gritting his teeth. “It'll be over eventually.”

Miserably, reluctantly, Cas nods. He closes his eyes again and leans his head back against the headboard. Dean goes into the bathroom to splash his face with cold water. Cas doesn't need to know he threw up at the gas station an hour ago when he bought the chocolate and some more Gatorade. His hands are already starting to shake, and the aches all over his body are far more than just a headache, but there's no point in advertising it. Best to just suck it up and tough it out.

Dean turns the light off in the bathroom, plunging the whole place into darkness. It's only six in the evening, but with the blackout curtains drawn, nothing outside this room matters. Dean pulls off his jeans and climbs into the empty bed, curling uselessly against the flulike aches, and eventually manages to slip into something close enough to sleep to count.

-

_He hasn't dreamed of hell in so long, he'd almost forgotten. The air scrapes down his throat like a physical thing when he breathes, roots itself asbestos-deep in his lungs and infects him with pain. Things burrow in his skin and eat their way back out. He's upside down with his head in flames until his eyes melt and run up his face in a grotesque mockery of tears. He's flayed awake, taken apart and shown the pieces, can still feel all the pain from his limbs even when they're lying separate from him. Every torture Dean's heard of and a few thousand more for good measure._

_Hell isn't imaginative, it's just methodical._

_His breath is coming in short gasps, the memory of pain so real, so immediate – usually his dreams of hell include the smells, the noise. This time it's nothing but raw physical torment. He twists and writhes to get away from it, desperate to shed his own burning skin, claws at himself for the tiny relief of pain he can_ control.

_Sound is wrenching out of him against his will, the gargling horrific screams of a creature without a throat, a scorched and ruined husk that vomits black tarry smoke when its mouth opens to shriek for mercy -_

And he's awake, choking on a far more human cry of pain, writhing against something soft and yielding, and he has all his limbs. Although he's not sure he's thrilled about that last thing. Every inch of him hurts. His skin is on fire, his lungs still straining for a full breath against the vise around his chest.

But it's already all dulling at the edges, and he struggles to squint his eyes open and orient himself against the fever and the dark. There's something hot pressed all around his head. After a few moments he understands that Castiel is slumped over him from above, hands cupped around the back of his head, thumbs circling his temples.

Cas makes a faint sound of pain, and his breath hitches.

Dean grates out, “Stop.”

Cas shakes his head slightly, mouth twisted into a grimace, and presses his thumbs a little harder into Dean's skin. Dean tries to buck his grasp, but he's too weak and still burning up with fever. The trickle of divine intent slips into him like a sip of cool water, and with it comes dreamless sleep.

-

Dean is warm. There's soft under his head, and air on his face. Something tickles his nose. His arms are around a body, breathing in sync.

He opens his eyes.

There's light. Sunlight. Early morning, Dean thinks, by the quality. The light is coming from the motel window, where the blackout curtains have been drawn back a few inches. Sitting at the small table in the soft spill of the light, reading a book, is Sam.

_Really_ Sam.

Dean takes a deep breath, too sudden, and realizes that he aches all over. He aches in that way that comes after spending eight hours digging up a grave in rocky, uncooperative soil. Every atom of him has its own individual ache. He can hardly stand the thought of moving, but... he aches in a way that feels like the pain is finished, and he needs to know for sure.

With the creaky joints and arthritic movements of a man three times his age, Dean rolls onto his back, and flops a heavy hand onto his chest. Flat. With a hitch in his breath, he slides his hand down and cups between his legs.

“God,” Dean groans, about ready to cry at the relief that floods through him. He closes his eyes. It soothes the ache somewhat to know that it's all _over._ He gives his dick a little squeeze and coughs out a pained laugh.

“Ugh,” says Sam's voice. “Quit that.” _Sam's real voice!_ Dean opens his eyes again and rolls his head over to look at his brother, dumb floppy hair and flat chest and deep voice and all. Dean laughs again breathlessly, and agonizingly pushes himself to sit upright in the bed.

“Bitch,” Dean rasps, voice gone. “Can't tell me you didn't, too.”

He rubs grit from his eyes. It takes way more effort than it should to lift his hand to his face. His palm drifts over his cheek and his stomach leaps with unexpected elation at the slight scrape of stubble. If he weren't so wrung out, he'd leap up and do a touchdown dance of joy. Instead he settles for scratching his chin and sighing happily.

"What happened?" he asks. "I don't remember much." He turns slightly to take in the body lying next to him, the body he'd been spooning when he woke. Castiel looks deeply asleep, face slack, skin an unhealthy ashen color. Dean rests a hand on his upturned shoulder.

Sam puts his book down open-faced and rubs his eyes. "Uh, you had it worst," he says. "Cas said the spell was tangled the worst with your energies, or something. You got some of Wendy's negative traits, so." Sam shrugs. "I don't know, metaphysical blah-blah. It's Friday."

That means Dean's lost four days. His stomach squirms uncomfortably. He hates losing time, but at least in this instance he can rest assured that he doesn't want to remember it.

"Explains why I gotta piss so bad," Dean quips. He takes his hand off Cas and tries to push himself to his feet. Sam jumps up and hurries around the bed to help him, which Dean doesn't have a chance to protest before his knees fold right out from under him like soggy cardboard. "Oh," Dean says, hanging off Sam like a marionette.

"Yeah, I was super weak the first day back, too." Sam hauls him up easily enough and starts walking him towards the bathroom. "It'll pass."

They've taken care of each other through too many illnesses and injuries to be too precious about privacy. Sam deposits Dean on the toilet and only halfway pulls the door shut, hanging around outside for Dean's signal to come back in and help drag him back to the bed. Dean manages everything all right, although he has to haul himself around on the handicap rail a lot because his legs are simply not cooperating, and he feels somewhat robbed of a triumphant return to standing up to piss. Finished, he sits and pants for a minute, feeling like he's run a marathon. He looks at the shower longingly, but he can't stand, and he isn't about to ask Sam to hold him up for that. If Cas was awake, maybe. He's ripe, and he distantly recognizes that he's ravenously hungry, but right now the overwhelming urge is to fall back into sweet, sweet sleep.

Dean leans his head back, sighs, and thumps the wall with his fist. Sam pokes his head in. "You rang?" Sam asks.

"'M a fuckin' overcooked noodle, man," Dean groans.

"I got over it in a day or so," Sam says, wrapping a giant arm around his shoulders and hauling him up. "You hungry?"

"Can't," Dean says weakly, collapsing uselessly on the bed by Cas. Sam makes a noise of assent and drags the blanket out from under Dean's feet and back over his body. "Jus' gon' sleep summore." His eyes are already closing. He barely registers Sam shoving him over on his side so he's facing Cas' back. He gets one arm over Cas' side and wrangles his other hand out from under himself so his circulation won't get cut off, and then he's....

-

... waking up what feels like a heartbeat later, with lips against his and a hand on his face, and hot, too-close breath whispering his name. He opens his eyes, disoriented, and makes a noise of protest, and the hand on his face grabs around his waist instead, and then he's being held too tight and he lets out a soft _oof._

"Hey," he croaks, flailing for purchase. The room is dark. His hands find soft jersey covering a strong back and he gathers fistfuls of it, holding Cas close. "Hey, Cas. Hey, it's okay."

Cas relaxes his hold slightly but doesn't let go. Against Dean's shoulder, he murmurs, "It's over."

"Yeah, it's over." Dean rubs his back. "You shouldn't have pushed yourself so hard."

Cas shakes his head. "I could see what you were dreaming. I had to stop it."

Dean is quiet for a while. He closes his eyes and pushes Cas' shirt up to slide his hand around Cas's bare back, fingers pressed to skin just for the contact. "Thanks," he whispers at last.

After a few minutes, Dean realizes he isn't going back to sleep anytime soon. He also realizes he feels stronger, less sore.

"Cas," Dean mutters. "You gotta let me up." Reluctantly, Cas unwinds his limbs and Dean pushes upright, rubbing a hand over his face. His stubble is out of control. He catches a whiff of himself once his arm is raised, and he grimaces. "God, I need a shower," he mutters.

"There will be severe muscle weakness..." Cas starts.

Dean reaches over and takes his hand for a moment. "Yeah, I woke up once already. I think yesterday." He peers at the digital clock between the beds – 3:17 a.m. On the other bed, a Sam-shaped lump is snoring lightly. "I feel better, I think I've got it."

"Let me, anyway," Cas says, and Dean doesn't have the energy to argue him down when he slides off the other side of the bed and comes around to help. Dean's legs are shaky, but they hold. He feels a little more strength coming back the more he gets up and moving. A little digging in the duffels unearths plenty of clean clothes, and Dean wonders if Sam's been to a laundromat in the time Dean's been playing vegetable.

Dean strips in the dark outside the bathroom and feels Cas doing the same somewhere near him. Sam is still sawing logs, so Dean thinks they're safe. He hisses at the cold tile underfoot when he steps into the bathroom, but then Cas is crowding in behind him, shutting the door, and flipping the light on, and Dean turns to look at him, and everything rushes over him all at once. It's _over._ He's looking at Cas from the right height again, and his voice is sleep-rough but it's _his_ voice, and his body isn't screaming wrongness at him every time he moves. Cas is there next to him, naked, looking tired but no longer ill, and Dean's got him pressed back against the door before he registers moving at all. He kisses and Cas kisses back, hand around the back of Dean's neck, short, harsh breaths against Dean's mouth. The silence is only broken by small wet sounds and a rough sigh of relief from Cas.

What finally breaks through the rosy haze is Dean's realization that their combined morning breath is truly nasty. He kisses Cas one last time anyway before pulling back and making a face, sticking his tongue out. Cas' eyes crinkle up in that gummy grin Dean loves, and he bumps his forehead against Dean's in understanding. "Shower," Cas murmurs, and Dean nods against his head.

The shower's barely big enough for two grown men. Dean leans against the wall, letting the hot water scald away the stink of sweat and sickness. Cas washes his back and Dean leans his head forward under the water, letting it massage the back of his neck. He runs a hand over the back of his head and realizes that his hair is still buzzed almost to the scalp. He can let it grow again, now. He opens his eyes and stares down at his miraculously familiar body, drinking in the ability to exist fully within himself again. He never thought he had taken his body for granted before, but he sure as hell won't now.

Dean loses track of time, but eventually Cas reaches around him and turns the water off. Dean misses the hot water immediately, but his legs are starting to demand that he sit down before he falls down, so he stumbles out and grabs a towel.

He remembers to be quiet when he opens the bathroom door, but it turns out he doesn't need to bother. Sam is sitting up in bed, face illuminated by his phone. He glances up when Dean shuffles out. Dean makes an extra effort to secure the towel around his waist. Behind him, Cas steps out of the bathroom, and Sam quickly looks down at his phone. Dean doesn't need to turn around to know that Cas is displaying his usual lack of modesty.

With a beleaguered sigh, Dean pulls on his clean clothes and tosses the towel in the vague direction of the shower before shuffling around in the dark to find his toothbrush. He pays no mind to anyone else, just focuses on removing the fuzziness from his teeth and gargling mouthwash until his mouth no longer tastes like dead things rotting under logs. Feeling far more human, he finally makes his way back to the bed and collapses, sitting up against the pillows, relieved to be off his feet.

“Why're you showering together at four in the fucking morning?” Sam grumbles, not looking over.

“Woke up,” Dean says. “Hard to go back to sleep when you just spent five days unconscious.”

Sam sighs. Dean knows he understands, he's just being pissy.

The bed beside Dean dips and Cas climbs into his personal space, sitting so close that their shoulders are pressed together. Without looking, Dean recognizes the feel of t-shirt jersey against his arm, and is at least thankful that Cas got dressed. He leans against Cas' arm, content with the contact.

For long minutes they sit in silence, in the dark. Sam drops his phone to the covers beside him. Cas slides his hand over to Dean's and wraps their fingers gently together. Dean leans his head back against the headboard and contemplates the madness that is his life.

And then, with all the emphasis and sincerity he can muster, he says, “I'm fucking starving.”

-

_Three Weeks Later_

“You got pictures of those runes you couldn't ID?” Bobby asks, attention still half on the book he's flipping through. Sam hums assent, pulls up the photos on his phone and slides it across the kitchen table. Bobby picks it up absentmindedly and starts looking back and forth between the book and the phone, stopping every now and then to check the index or jot down a note. The estate sale from the grimoire-hoarder had turned up some valuable tomes and Bobby's spent the last month studying them.

Sam is on his laptop, job hunting. It's late morning on a rainy Thursday. The sky is overcast but not stormy, and the pattering of rain on the roof and rivulets of water streaming down the windows sre lulling. Bobby has one lamp on, barely enough to read by. The kitchen is suffused with the rich aroma of coffee and old paper. Sam's research is turning up signs of a potential haunting in Montana, but he hates the idea of packing up and rolling out again so soon after their last hunt. It's perfect weather for making a big pot of chili, watching the rain, and sleeping away the afternoon in front of the TV.

Dean and Cas are still asleep upstairs, or at least Sam will pretend they're asleep to save his own sanity. Either way, they're enjoying a lazy morning in, and Sam isn't going to burst their bubble. He'll tell them about the haunting signs when they come down for lunch.

A few more minutes pass in silence before Bobby clears his throat. Sam glances up at him. Bobby's looking at the phone, eyebrows totally vanished up under his hat. “Uh,” Bobby says, “what the hell am I lookin' at?”

Sam's heart thumps once. Twice. And then realization crashes over him.

He almost shoves his laptop off the table in his scramble to grab for the phone. Bobby yelps and holds the device out of Sam's reach and Sam flails for it, saying, “Uh, nothing! That's nothing!”

“The hell it is!” Bobby says, standing and backing towards the stove with the phone, looking at the photo again. Sam catches the glint of amusement in his eyes. “This is _you.”_

“Uh, no it, nope, that's,” Sam tries. “Um. Fuck.”

Bobby takes another gleeful gander at the photo. “And who is Jessica Rabbit here with you, Triple D?”

“Nobody! Rachel! Listen.” Sam drops back into his seat, hands over his eyes. “Oh my god. There was this spell, it was terrible...”

“Yeah, looks terrible,” says Bobby, dry as the Sahara.

Sam lowers his head onto his arms on the table. “Rachel took that selfie of us and it's the only picture I got of her, okay?” He heaves a sigh. “Don't let Dean see that, for the love of god.”

Bobby returns to the table, laughing, and shoves Sam's phone back at him. “I won't, on the condition you tell me the whole story.”

Sam groans. He raises his head, looks down at the picture staring up at him. Rachel was hot as hell and cool and funny, and frankly it makes him terribly sad that he can't call the number she'd given him even though she'd accepted that he was only looking for a one-night thing. But it was a great night, and he can't help smiling a little at the photo – Rachel beaming, Sam with a lipstick smudge on his neck, the multicolored lightshow of the bar filling up the background behind them.

With a sigh, Sam clicks off his phone and says, “Remember when we were in Tennessee last month? So there was this hedge witch...”

-

**Author's Note:**

> The Dean/Cas sex technically includes F/F and M/F but both are still identified as men throughout. Cas is altogether indifferent and technically identifies agender, but is fine with being considered male. Dean experiences bad dysphoria while attempting sex in a female body, and also gets hit with a few sexist microaggressions from strangers throughout. He also wears a binder later on in an effort to pass as male.
> 
> Body horror includes the physical transformations and a brief dream about hell.


End file.
